County School Board

An article in yesterday's editions of The Sun mischaracterized the Howard County school board's position on plans to curb disruptive student behavior. The board was presented the plans last week but has not taken formal action.The article also mischaracterized circumstances in which school officials will press trespassing charges. Students will be prosecuted if they leave their schools and go to other schools during the day without permission.The Sun regrets the errors.Pub Date: 5/17/97

The Carroll County school board has selected three candidates to replace a member who stepped down in March. Virginia Harrison, 60, of Sykesville; Jeffrey Morse, 53, of Silver Run; and C. Scott Stone, 56, of Hampstead were chosen from among 22 individuals interviewed during a public session Monday. Those three names were passed on to Gov. Martin O'Malley yesterday.

Desegregation On March 12, 1963 - nearly nine years after the U.S. Supreme Court's landmark school desegregation ruling in Brown v. Board of Education - the Howard County school board unanimously approved this regulation: "That the twelfth grade of the Public Schools of Howard County be desegregated with the opening of the 1963 fall school term." [Source: Board of Education proceedings, as quoted in History of Blacks in Howard County, by Alice Cornelison, Silas E. Craft Sr. and Lillie Price.

An item in Civic Agenda published Sunday in the Howard County edition of The Sun inadvertently combined descriptions of two public meetings scheduled for today. The Howard County Council meeting with the county school board at board headquarters on Route 108 at 8:15 a.m. today is being held to review education issues. A separate meeting at the George Howard Building in Ellicott City at 8:30 a.m. is a community workshop to discuss ideas on how to make Howard County a more pedestrian-friendly place.

Two county high schools have been approved for a prestigious - and rigorous - academic magnet program administered by an international educational organization, school officials said. Annapolis and Old Mill high schools will offer the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme to about 100 current sophomores from around the county next school year. In the two-year program, students will complete a 4,000-word paper and 150 hours of art, athletic and community service activities. Students who pass IB exams at the end of the program could be eligible for credit for college courses.

Thanks to Amy Carroll for her insensitive approach to denying the comforts of parks and the beauty of nature to the "grays," as she calls us senior citizens ("Mays Chapel residents sue county school board over land transaction," March 28). As for the schoolchildren, only a handful actually live in the immediate area. The majority will be bused in or driven to school by a parent. The added traffic, not to mention pollution, noise and otherwise, will only lead to the further deterioration of aging lungs.

BELTRAM NAMED TO NATIONAL COMMITTEECounty Council member Angela Beltram, D-2d, was named last month to the Environment, Energy and Land Use Steering Committee of the National Association of Counties (NACo), the organization that represents the interests of county government at the national level.The NACos steering committees form the organization's policy-making arm and determine its positions on critical issues.NEW SLATE REPRESENTS COUNTY SCHOOL BOARDThe county school board will be represented by a four-member team led by Robert S. Lazarewicz, director of operations, in contract talks with educational support personnel this year.

Annapolis mayoral candidate Carl O. Snowden said Friday that if he is elected, he will try to return Annapolis High School's graduation ceremonies to Annapolis and to have annual meetings between the city council and the county school board.The alderman spoke for about a half-hour at a news conference in front of Annapolis Middle School."I want to become the education mayor, if you will," he said after the news conference."Everyone feels very strongly that Annapolis High School commencement services need to be returned to the city of Annapolis," he said.

In her first run for office, Allison Cole set her sights realistically: She wanted to be the student representative on the Anne Arundel County school board.Instead, she quickly found herself in the race to be the voice for all Maryland students on the State Board of Education.Yesterday, she became the first student from her county to achieve that distinction."I'm excited. I can't wait to get to work," the 16-year-old junior from Severna Park High School said.Jane Doyle, a county school board spokeswoman, said an Anne Arundel student was a finalist for the nonvoting state post three years ago, "but we've never had a representative from this county make the final cut. She's quite an accomplished student."

Freezing weather and ice left over from a winter storm yesterday prompted the Anne Arundel County Board of Education to close the county's 120 schools for the rest of the week."