County Public Schools

All Howard County public schools and offices will be closed on Monday, Sept. 9, in observance of Rosh Hashana. They will reopen Tuesday.

Howard held off defending champion Centennial at the 35th annual Howard County Championship meet, April 22 at the Howard Community College pool. Because swimming is not a sport that is sanctioned by the county's high school athletic program, the event is sponsored by the Columbia Clippers club team. Each school had a captain that recruited his or her classmates to form a team. Although Howard County public school swimmers get only one chance a year to represent their high school in the pool, many local swimmers will be continuing in college next year.

The Department of Special Education for Carroll County public schools has canceled its Individual Education Program workshop scheduled for 5:30 p.m. tomorrow at Carroll Springs School. The workshop will be rescheduled for the 2002-2003 school year. Information: 410-751-3020.

Theater and dance students in Prince George's County public schools can attend workshops in March that also offer the opportunity to perform. The second annual Theatre Arts Festival for county drama students will be held Tuesday, March 27 at 7 p.m. at the Bowie Center for the Performing Arts, 15200 Annapolis Road, Bowie. Drama students from Prince George's County public middle schools and high schools will participate in monologue competitions and workshops with professional artists, and the day will end with student performances at 6 p.m. The 15th annual Dance Showcase, on Thursday, March 29 at Dr. Henry A. Wise, Jr. High School, 12650 Brooke Lane, Upper Marlboro, provides county dance students an opportunity to work with professional choreographers and receive instruction in various dance genres.

Howard County public schools will continue operating under a modified lockdown through tomorrow, which means all exterior doors will be locked and all outdoor activities canceled or kept indoors. Field trips, work study programs and mentorships are called off. "[The Howard County police] are on high-alert," said school spokeswoman Patti Caplan. "It's a real eye-opener. They're concerned, and we're following their lead." Schools Superintendent John R. O'Rourke will decide day-to-day whether after-school activities and evening meetings will go on as scheduled.

Several county offices and businesses will be closed on Thursday, Nov. 22, in observance of Thanksgiving.All county government offices and courts will be closed on Thursday and Friday.The libraries, post office branches and landfill will be closed on Thursday but will reopen on Friday.There will be no refuse collection routes on Thursday, but regular routes will resume on Friday.Howard County Public Schools will be closed on Thursday and Friday.

The Baltimore County Board of Education will meet at 7:30 p.m. today, weather permitting, to vote on next year's operating budget. The meeting had been scheduled for last night but was postponed after county public schools were closed yesterday because of icy conditions. The board is scheduled to vote on county schools Superintendent Joe A. Hairston's proposed $1.18 billion spending plan for the fiscal year that starts July 1.

Carroll County Public Schools will begin implementing an extended school day tomorrow.All schools will begin classes 20 minutes before and end 30 minutes after the regular school starting and ending times.Morning kindergarten will be extended by 35 minutes, and afternoon kindergarten by 15 minutes.The extended school days will continue through May 19. This will allow the school system to make up six days lost to inclement weather.

The Cappie awards had the golden statuettes, the glamorous gowns and the showy musical numbers - but all of the winners at the first Baltimore gala to honor high school theater were teenagers. The Cappies - short for Critics and Awards Program - uses student critics to review high school productions and to vote on year-end awards, which were given Monday night at the Meyerhoff Symphony Hall. The evening embraced award-show glitz punctuated by the screams and whoops of audience members full of school spirit.

County Executive James M. Harkins is working on a plan to boost the salaries of Harford County teachers, which have fallen in recent years from the middle of the pack on the state pay scale to near the bottom. Since the school year beginning in September 2001, the starting salaries for teachers in Harford have failed to keep pace with those in most other counties. Harford has dropped from 12th place on a statewide salary list to 21st this year. Only Allegany, Garrett and Somerset counties pay their teachers less, according to the Maryland Negotiating Service, an organization made up of the chief negotiating officers from schools in the state's 24 government jurisdictions.

Students can earn service hours and help keep Rocky Gorge Reservoir beautiful at a community service day scheduled for Monday, Oct. 31, from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Prince George's County public schools are closed for students that day. County students ages 11 to 18 can register to participate in the event, which is being held by the county's Police Athletic League and Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission, which maintains the reservoir....

Hilda R. "Coach" Anderson, who was hired as Catonsville Community College's first woman coach and was an advocate for no sex discrimination in sports, died Oct. 4 of cancer at her Waverly Woods East home in Woodstock. The former longtime Windsor Hills resident was 83. The daughter of a shoe store owner and a homemaker, the former Hilda Roberty was born and raised in Mannington, W.Va. After graduating from Mannington High School in 1945, she earned a bachelor's degree at Fairmont State University in Fairmont, W.Va., in 1949.

Paul Joseph Coyle, a retired board-certified Baltimore County public school psychologist who earlier had been a teacher, died Saturday of lung cancer at Upper Chesapeake Medical Center in Bel Air. The Bel Air resident was 78. The son of a textile mill superintendent and a homemaker, Dr. Coyle was born in Central Falls, R.I., and raised in Lincoln, R.I. After graduating in 1950 from St. Raphael Academy in Pawtucket, R.I., he earned a...

Baltimore County Public Schools announced on Friday, Aug. 26, that all of its weekend activities for Saturday and Sunday, Aug. 27-28, at county schools would be canceled due to the pending arrival ofHurricane Irene. The school system sent out an alert that, "Because of anticipated inclement weather, all activities … are canceled. The school system is scheduled to have opening day of the new school year on Monday, Aug. 29, and that's still the plan, according to Charles Herndon, a spokesman for the school system.

Prince George's County Public Schools received the 2011 Distinguished Budget Presentation Award from the Government Finance Officers Association (GFOA) of the United States and Canada. This award represents the highest rating given to government budget documents. Submissions are reviewed by three independent reviewers. PGCPS was rated proficient in all four categories: policy document, financial plan, operations guide and communications device, as well as the 14 mandatory criteria within those categories.

The national High School Challenge has named 13 Baltimore County Public Schools to its list of top U.S. high schools. The list, compiled and published by the Washington Post, is an annual project that ranks high schools based on academic rigor. From more than 27,000 high schools across the nation, the list spotlights more than 1,900 high schools that represent the top 7 percent of high schools in the nation, based on total student participation in rigorous coursework and exams.

Due to inclement weather that forced the closing of Baltimore County public schools, all sports events scheduled for yesterday -- with the exception of the 3:30 p.m. Dulaney at Dundalk boys basketball game -- were postponed until today at their same times and locations.Ron Belinko, coordinator of physical education and athletics, said the Dulaney/Dundalk game likely will be rescheduled for Monday, because Dundalk is the site of the county wrestling tournament beginning today.The Harford County swimming and diving championships have been moved to Thursday at 6 p.m. at Magnolia Middle School.