Classroom

Heather Burt knows that above-the-knee skirts, the flash of a midriff or cleavage, and jeans are no-nos while she is working as a fourth-grade teacher at Meade Heights Elementary School in Anne Arundel County. She has never been warned against wearing these clothes because she understands the unspoken rule. "That is the rule of thumb," Burt said. "You want to look professional My [students] wear uniforms. It is not very professional if you wear jeans if the kids can't. Dressing professionally, the kids take you more seriously.

It's Teacher Appreciation Week, the standardized testing season has mostly ended in the public schools this year - and what have we learned? Parents have learned that their first-graders are developing test anxiety. Teachers have learned that they need to tell parents to accept the fact that these high-stakes tests are not going anywhere. But perhaps most importantly, some of us have learned that some of the best kind of learning happens after school, or once the testing demands have passed.

A student at Baltimore Community High School is being charged after an altercation with his teacher, according to city schools. The incident occurred Wednesday morning in the hallway near the teacher's classroom at the school at 6820 Fait Ave. in Southeast Baltimore, according to a statement from city schools. The teacher, who was not identified, was treated at a nearby hospital. Baltimore City Public Schools police charged the student with aggravated assault, and he could receive an extended suspension or expulsion under the schools' code of conduct, the statement says.

On Thursday, April 18, lawyers and judges from Maryland's courts will share their expertise and personal experiences to help area students learn about law and society. Students attending the Civics and Law Academy will meet face-to-face with judges and other legal professionals to discuss a variety of topics, including juvenile rights, criminal law, free speech and the law in the technology age. The April 18 session will be held at North Harford High School in Pylesville, and will include more than 100 students from North Harford, Joppatowne, Bel Air, Edgewood, Aberdeen, Fallston and Havre de Grace high schools.

Eleven-year-old Sy'Keirra English strides confidently to the front of the classroom and greets her teacher in his native language - Arabic. Atheed Azzet could not be more pleased. It has been three months, and the kids are grasping phrases that few of them had ever heard before he entered their lives. This tall, slim Iraqi clearly holds the allegiance of the sixth-graders at William C. March Middle School, located in a tough section of East Baltimore. When he beckons, they flock to the blackboard to draw Arabic's unfamiliar swirls and dots.

THE BIG QUESTION for the new city-state education partnership is: Now what? If approved by the General Assembly, the city receives $50 million a year in additional state aid, and the state gets a major role in school policy-making.But that's the easy part. What's elusive, as other urban school systems undergoing radical restructuring have found out, are reform policies that improve the academic performance of low-achieving students.Here is a top-10 list of policies for the new board's consideration.

BRITNEY SPEARS videos, rap music, Abercrombie & Fitch advertisements - our children are constantly bombarded by media images depicting young men and women in overtly sexual situations. Lyrics promote violence and poor behavior choices. Entertainers, politicians and athletes, once role models, often provide highly visible examples of immoral conduct. Parents are deeply concerned about their children's values and behaviors. Schools can help parents raise children of character in today's seemingly toxic climate.

Vandals pushed in a side window of a satellite classroom at George Fox Middle School Friday night and set a fire that caused an estimated $20,000 in damage, fire officials said.A school maintenance man reported the fire about 8:30 p.m., after an alarm summoned him to the school in the 7900 block of Outing Ave.Fire officials said the blaze started at 7:30 p.m., but they did not say how the fire was started.

The president of the powerful Baltimore Teachers Union said yesterday that there has been no improvement in Baltimore classrooms since Richard C. Hunter arrived as superintendent 2 1/2 years ago and that the union's board would soon vote on whether he should be rehired."

Vandals broke into a portable classroom at Gardenville Elementary School before the start of the school day yesterday, leaving a mess of ruined schoolbooks and furniture and urine on the floor. Fourth-grade teacher Valerie Belton said she was devastated to discover the havoc in her classroom, which she had renovated over the summer with furniture donated by IKEA in White Marsh. "I just stood in the middle of the floor and started crying," said Belton, who had relished surprising her pupils with the new bookshelves, carpets and colorful bear-shaped armchairs.

The Western School of Technology and Environmental Science in Catonsville is scheduled to reopen Friday after an early-morning fire Thursday damaged two portable classrooms and the roof of the high school's main building, school officials said. Staff worked Thursday to prepare the building for reopening and ensure that it would be safe for students, school system spokesman Mychael Dickerson said. Firefighters responded to the school in the 100 block of Kenwood Avenue about 2:34 a.m. Thursday for reports of a possible fire and found one portable classroom engulfed in flames, with the fire spreading to a second portable classroom, according to the Baltimore County Fire Department.

"When we say 'turtle,' you say 'power,'" Jamie Trost called out to a group of eighth-graders. And when the students from St. Jane Frances School in Pasadena hollered "power," they pulled hard on the ropes, hoisting the sails of the Pride of Baltimore II. It was the first part of a lesson, teaching the teens you can't give strong, coordinated tugs without a good grunt, and also how privateers during the War of 1812 got their sleek ships moving...

At Germantown Elementary School in Annapolis, students receive physical education once a week. Officially, that is. Unofficially, students are engaging in the same level of activity as their "go-outside-and-play" parents of previous generations. At recess, before classes and after school — and in some cases even during classroom instruction — youngsters are getting workouts by playing traditional games, learning new ones and creating their own spinoff versions. Germantown Elementary is among the first schools in the area to implement a San Diego-based physical education program called SPARK, which stresses to children the importance of physical fitness, then provides grade-level equipment and instruction to back it up. SPARK officials said the program began in 1989 as a result of a study supported by the Heart, Lung and Blood Institute of the National Institutes of Health and San Diego State University.

Imagine a classroom where math is taught through the works of Matisse and reading is learned through a dramatic skit instead of a textbook. That's the scenario at several Anne Arundel County public schools that use the practice of arts integration. "Arts integration strategy gets students to work with creativity. It gives them a chance to work with critical thinking," said Suzanne Owens, a visual arts coordinator for AACPS, where administrators believe a fusion of arts and core objectives gives students a better — and longer-lasting — learning experience.

It is 6:45 a.m. and Severna Park High School freshman Chelsea Rogers has a decision to make: skip the most important meal of the day or skip the school bus. "There's no time for breakfast," said Rogers after reaching the corner of Hill Road and Baltimore Annapolis Boulevard in Severna Park, where the bus will take her to school in time for classes to begin at 7:17 a.m. She said she hadn't had a bite since 8 p.m. the night before and wouldn't eat...

Chris Dunn called the class to order with a simple instruction: "One, two, ready, strum. " A torrent of E minor chords - or close enough - from nearly a dozen guitars filled the room at the Commodore John Rodgers Elementary/Middle School near Patterson Park. The smallest kids could barely get their right arms around the body of the instrument, but they found a way to strum as energetically as the others. For the next 90 minutes, Dunn darted from student to student, making sure they had their fingers on the correct fret, offering words of encouragement.

As Maryland's superintendent of schools, Nancy Grasmick doesn't usually spend her mornings making purple monster hand puppets or reading stories to a rambunctious group of first-graders.But yesterday, at Timber Grove Elementary School in Owings Mills, Dr. Grasmick did just that as she stepped back into the classroom as a teacher for the first time in nearly 10 years.It was also the first time a state school superintendent has spent a day teaching in the classroom in an effort to become reacquainted with Maryland's students.

Education policy wasn't a significant issue in the 2012 presidential election, but it needs to be one in 2013. Americans are increasingly dissatisfied with public education, and no small wonder: studies continue to show that our schools, once the envy of the world, have fallen to the middle of the pack or worse. Such concern prompted a task force led by former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and former New York City School Chancellor Joel I. Klein to issue a report for the Council on Foreign relations stating that the "The United States' failure to educate its students leaves them unprepared to compete and threatens the country's ability to thrive in the global economy.

Margaret A. "Peggy" MacKenzie, a longtime Park School educator and administrator, died Saturday of cancer at a daughter's Lutherville home. She was 81. "Peggy was an old hand and an old-timer when I became headmaster in 1976," said F. Parvin Sharpless of Gwynedd, Pa., who was headmaster of Park School until retiring in 1995. "She was a very solid kindergarten teacher who loved the children and was always gentle and never patronizing. She talked to them like they were real people. " The daughter of a building superintendent and a homemaker, Margaret Anne Shelley was born in New York City and raised on Beekman Place in Manhattan.