Build A School

The Howard County Board of Education unanimously approved last night a capital budget plan that includes funds for a new northeastern elementary school, a previously approved Fulton area high school that would open in 2002, and additions and renovations to existing schools.Superintendent Michael E. Hickey had proposed a $51 million building plan for fiscal year 2001, and the board made changes that increased it to $53.6 million.The proposal will go to the state Interagency Commission for School Construction for approval.

State school officials do not want to help pay for a 600-student Davidsonville Elementary School, but the Anne Arundel County school board has decided to keep looking for ways to build a school that big and bring down the cost.Board members debated long and hard Wednesday about a proposal to spend $14 million to replace the school on Central Avenue, a plan opposed for months as overly expensive by County Executive John G. Gary. But then they voted in favor of building a more economical structure and asking Gary for the $11.7 million to do it."

Harvester Baptist Church is moving ahead with plans to build a school on its Columbia property, continuing a trend toward increased parochial education in Howard County."

County school projects have been shifted around in the last two months like tiles in a Scrabble game, but the letters still spell the same word: M-O-N-E-Y.Westminster should get a second high school by 2002. That's the intention of both the school board and at least two county commissioners, a consensus reached in a quarterly meeting yesterday.But whether the commissioners can find a way to pay for the approximately $30 million project is unclear. After tentatively approving reducing the "piggyback tax," the county's share of the state income tax, the commissioners now might have to keep the tax at the higher rate to pay for school projects.

Westminster West Middle School students will not have to transfer to Northwest Middle School in Taneytown.It was the redistricting proposal no one seemed to want, and Carroll's school board voted it down Wednesday, earlier than scheduled, to remove it from consideration."

An expected spurt in enrollment at Roman Catholic schools in Anne Arundel County could lead to construction of a new school for kindergarten through eighth grade in Odenton or Davidsonville, according to a panel studying needs of Catholic schools."

If $650,000 is what it takes for the new Park Elementary School to hold all the students that will be assigned there when it opens in September, then the county school board should spend it, according to Brooklyn Park parents.Parents say they are outraged that the new school has been designed to hold 450 students instead of 600 as promised. And with 550 students expected to be enrolled there come September, about 100 students will be left without seats.Last night, the parents met with school planners to discuss several options:* Add four more classrooms at a cost of $650,000 to the building now under construction.

Philip Vizzini, an immigrant from Italy who owned a construction firm, died Tuesday of heart failure at his home in West Baltimore. He was 95.Mr. Vizzini, who often said proudly that he came to this country with nothing more than a hammer, founded Philip Vizzini & Son Inc. in 1918.He specialized in building schools and when he retired in 1972 and closed the firm, he had built 42 schools in Baltimore City and Baltimore and Anne Arundel counties.His firm also built the temporary Lexington Market building after a 1949 fire destroyed the old market structure, the Navy Marine Corps Memorial Stadium in Annapolis and the Har Sinai Congregation complex.

After nine months of false starts, the county is moving closer to building a new South School Elementary School, but parents think officials are being shortsighted and that the school will be overcrowded when the doors open in 1997.In recommending a new $8.8 million school for Crownsville, the Anne Arundel County Planning Advisory Board also recommended to County Executive John G. Gary that the building accommodate 312 students, 100 fewer than originally proposed by the school board and the South Shore PTA.The advisory board's action frustrated parents, who said they had hoped for a school that would be adequate for years.

The Carroll County Commissioners and county school board members agreed yesterday to continue studying how to build schools quicker without sacrificing quality -- including allowing developers to build them."

The Anne Arundel County Council has rejected a settlement that would have relieved the county of a $3 million lawsuit, but at the same time would have eased zoning laws and allowed a church to build a school on an environmentally sensitive plot of land. The County Council voted unanimously during Monday night's meeting against a measure that would have relaxed zoning laws to allow Riverdale Baptist Church to build a school on a 57-acre tract near the Jug Bay Wetlands in Lothian. By refusing the settlement, which called for church leaders to drop their lawsuit claiming religious discrimination and the county to pay as much as $300,000, the county now will have to contend with the consequences of a potentially multimillion-dollar lawsuit.

In separate book clubs, Angie Jones and Martha Banghart read the book Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace...One School at a Time. In the book, Greg Mortenson, co-writer with David Oliver Relin, gives a detailed account of his failed attempt to climb to the top of K2, the world's second-highest mountain. But then he succeeds in building schools in some of the most remote regions of Afghanistan and Pakistan. Jones and Banghart, who serve as choral directors in the county's public school system, were so touched by the book they were inspired to do something to help.

A summer journey to India for three girls from an inner-city Baltimore school began simply, in an after-school club that devoted itself to helping other people. The club at Baltimore Talent Development High School raised money to buy mittens for preschoolers in a nearby Head Start program. Christin Morris, Indigo McMillian and LaKeisha Johnson liked the surprised expression on the children's faces when they opened up the gift bags at Christmas. "I like helping people. It feels good to give back," said Christin, 15. From there they moved on to corresponding with students in Kenya by creating a scrapbook of their lives illustrated by photographs.

Baltimore County has some of the best schools in Maryland. Newsweek recently recognized 10 county high schools as among the top 5 percent in the United States. Unfortunately, there are challenges on the horizon that undermine the strength of our schools and the vitality of our communities. School overcrowding is the most serious of these challenges. The debate over whether to build an addition at Loch Raven High School is the culmination of nearly a decade of frustration with the way Baltimore County plans and builds its schools.

It was during a meeting in mid-December with Baltimore County school officials on Towson's crowded elementary schools that Cathi Forbes realized she needed to do more than sit across the table and hope they'd do the right thing. The passion in her voice rose last week as she recalled the moment when school officials told her and a handful of other community members at the meeting that they were banking on a plan to build a school in Mays Chapel to alleviate the crowding that was forcing more students into portable classrooms each year.

The Howard County Board of Education has voted in favor of a $57 million construction plan to enlarge and renovate Mount Hebron High School. The plan would add eight classrooms, increase the building by 60,000 square feet, expand the width of most hallways in the school to at least 10 feet and add 523 square feet to the 9,195-quare-foot cafeteria. Although a few more details have to be worked out, the schematic design approved Thursday night is very close -- 90 percent to 95 percent -- to the way the school will be built, according to Ken Roey, executive director of facilities and management for the system.

Pakistan has made news lately as the world's most dangerous country: a nuclear-armed state that has become a base for al-Qaida, the Taliban and other fanatic Islamists. But on my trip there last month, I saw a route out of this trap - if Pakistan's government and the West would only seize it. I traveled to mountain villages with Greg Mortenson, a former mountain climber who has built 55 schools in Pakistan and eight in Afghanistan. Mr. Mortenson got lost 15 years ago descending from K-2, and promised to build a school for the villagers who rescued and nursed him. After building his first school, Mr. Mortenson set up the Central Asia Institute to build schools in Pakistan's most remote areas, where the government fails to provide education.

School to buy 22 acres at Rosewood for building The Shoshana S. Cardin School plans to pay the state $550,000 for a 22-acre parcel to build a school on the Rosewood property in Owings Mills, school officials said yesterday. The school, which officials said is the only independent Jewish high school in the Baltimore area, recently reached an agreement with The Associated: Jewish Community Federation of Baltimore to acquire the organization's right to buy the land, said Howard A. Janet, chairman of Cardin's board of trustees.

Residents of the Mays Chapel area of Timonium are unhappy about the Baltimore County school system's plans to build a school for special-education students on the site of the community's popular park. School officials say a school in Mays Chapel could help alleviate crowding elsewhere, particularly in the county's central area. It would allow them to transfer all students from Ridge Ruxton School, which has 123 special education students and 90 staff members. That move would free up classroom space in the Towson area.

State officials declared 54 acres at the Rosewood Center in Owings Mills surplus property yesterday, opening the door for county officials to purchase it to build a school. For parents and state legislators, who have long championed the idea of building what would be the area's first middle school, the state Board of Public Works decision is a significant development. "Children are bused farther because there isn't a centrally located middle school," said Jonathan Schwartz, chairman of the Reisterstown-Owings Mills-Glyndon Community Council's Owings Mills Middle School committee.