Day Care Center

A Baltimore County appeals board cleared the way yesterday for Har Sinai Congregation to start work on a 62,500-square-foot synagogue, day care center and school on the site of a former dump in Worthington Valley -- even as neighbors prepare to go to court next week to try to stop the development.The county's Board of Appeals, ending a year of county review, said it would issue a written order approving the project by Friday, when Har Sinai will be allowed to receive permits to begin preparing the site for construction.

An Essex man employed by the Baltimore County school system was suspended this week after being charged with sexual abuse of a child at a day care center where he also worked, officials said.A criminal summons issued for Marlon Charles Bonner, 25, of the 1300 block of Goodwood Ave. charged him with one count of child abuse and one count of third-degree sexual offense.Bonner, who worked at Sandalwood Elementary School in Essex, was placed on paid suspension pending the outcome of the police investigation, said a spokesman for the county schools.

A Morgan State University police officer has been charged with raping and abusing a child in his wife's day care center in Essex, Baltimore County police said yesterday.Marc Allen Friend, 35, of the 1000 block of Foxwood Lane, was arrested last week after the child, who is now 14, reported the abuse, according to arrest documents.Friend, who has worked at Morgan State for seven years, was charged with first-degree rape and child abuse. He was released on bail of $50,000. He has been placed on administrative duty at Morgan and will not carry a gun or wear a uniform until the case is resolved, said college spokesman Wiley Hall III.Charging documents show that the girl told police and social services officers that she was raped on two occasions during the summer of 1995, when she stayed at the day care center run by Friend's wife at the couple's home.

Queen Anne's County police are getting help from the FBI in their investigation of the deaths last week of two infants at a home day care center on Kent Island.When autopsies completed by the state medical examiner were inconclusive, the federal agency offered to conduct further tests at its Washington headquarters' laboratory.Scientists there will examine food and containers that might have been involved in the deaths of the 5-month-old babies, said Larry Foust, an FBI spokesman."We have one of the largest, most sophisticated labs of its type in the world, so it made sense that we could be of assistance to the Queen Anne's Sheriff's Department," Foust said.

A Parkville woman and her husband were given probation before judgment Thursday in Baltimore County District Court in Towson after being convicted of running an illegal day care center with fire code violations.The charges against Diane L. and Melvin Smith stemmed from a fire in their home in April that caused minor injuries to six of the seven children being cared for there.Assistant State's Attorney Jason G. League said the Smiths each were fined $200 for fire code violations. Diane Smith also was fined $250 for operating an unlicensed day care center.

The Carroll County Board of Zoning Appeals has approved a conditional use for a day care center at Faith Lutheran Church, 1700 St. Andrews Way, Eldersburg.The Grow, Learn & Play Day Care Inc. made the request to move from the Freedom Village Shopping Center. The church and Grow, Learn & Play have an agreement for the day care center to lease space on the church's lower level and to use some outside area as a playground.The day care center has 12 adult employees and a capacity of 65 children ages 2 to 5.The board approved the request but limited the operation of the center to weekdays and no later than 7 p.m.FireGamber: Firefighters from Reese assisted Gamber at 1: 33 a.m. Monday, responding for a fire alarm in the 2700 block of Cold Saturday Drive.

It is not yet dawn when Terry Proctor's day begins. Her husband, Steve, nudges her as he leaves for work. By 5: 45 a.m., the Elkridge couple must sort out their children's schedules for the day.Will Terry's work take her out of town today? Any chance Steve will get off early? Their three children need rides to day care, school, athletic practices, tutoring sessions and periodic medical appointments.Like thousands of other Howard County families, the Proctors manage all this before, after and while at work and during their half-hour commutes -- he to Adelphi, she to Baltimore.

When bright Ukrainian teen-agers meet rambunctious American preschoolers, chaos ensues.Such was the case yesterday at the Tender Years day care center in Middle River, where Sergei, Nastasha and Maxim mingled with Tyrell, Brittany and Rasheem.Twenty Ukrainians are in the United States -- and more than 100 Baltimore County teen-agers soon will go to Ukraine -- under an exchange program coordinated by the Baltimore County school system.Students Sharing Coalition -- a private group founded by Linda Kohler, a Stoneleigh mother of three, to involve students in the needs of the community -- is working with the school system on the program.

Before saying yes or no to a pilot day care center for the babies of high school students, the Carroll County Board of Education wants to wait a month to hear from the public.The board could vote April 12 on whether to allow the committee working on the idea to continue. The evening portion of the meeting begins at 7 p.m. at Mount Airy Elementary School.The proposed center would provide the girls with safe, convenient day care so they don't drop out of school, proponents say."We have 53 girls under 17 who are pregnant," said George Giese, director of the Youth Service Bureau in Carroll County.

The county commissioners voted unanimously yesterday to allow a coalition of service providers to open a day care center for the babies of high school students in the county-owned Distillery building in Westminster.Organizers of the project, called Raising Hopes, say the day care center will provide teen-age mothers with safe, convenient day care so that they won't drop out of school."We have a dropout rate of 75 percent among pregnant girls," George Giese, director of Carroll County's Youth Service Bureau, told the commissioners yesterday.

The calm of what residents called a quiet Howard County neighborhood was briefly interrupted Friday afternoon when an 18-year-old Columbia man was shot in the leg at an apartment he was visiting. Police put two local schools and a day care center on lockdown as they searched for his assailant, who they arrested later that day. Walter Richardson of the 5500 block of Sheffield Court was taken to Maryland Shock Trauma Center with injuries that were not considered life-threatening, police said.

When a slug from a deer hunter's shotgun shattered a window at a day care center in Clarksville last month, staff members inside were terrified, imagining anything from a crazed gunman to a sniper. Parents of children at Kid's Time Out Day Care Center were shocked, too, when they were notified about what happened. "I was horrified," said Carolyn Gale Sanford, whose 3-year-old was in the day care center at the time of the incident. Sanford testified during a crowded County Council hearing last week on a proposed measure to strengthen hunting rules in Howard.

Reba Biemiller, who received a distinguished service award from Aberdeen Proving Ground and also operated a day care center for 15 years, died of pneumonia Aug. 23 at the Carroll Hospice Dove House in Westminster. She was 89 and had lived in Westminster. Reba Fern Alexander was born in Baltimore. She graduated from Western High School in 1937 and attended night school to get a secretarial degree in 1944. Her first job was as a secretary at Stieff Silver, where she worked for three years in the mid-1940s, said her daughter, Carole B. Samios of Westminster.

The Tide Point Day Care and Early Education Center isn't closing after all. After months of scrambling to find other high-quality day care near downtown, parents learned last week that the seven-year-old center near the waterfront is keeping its doors open, thanks to help from the city and private donors. "We have been able ... to put together a way to meet our mission," said Tom Curcio, chief executive officer of the Board of Child Care of the United Methodist Church, which runs the day care center.

Charles Preslipsky, who helped run a family-owned day care center in Odenton for 50 years, died of heart failure Dec. 15 at Baltimore Washington Medical Center in Glen Burnie. The Odenton resident was 87. Born in Sarver, Pa., Mr. Preslipsky graduated from Tarentum High School in 1939. After graduation, he worked for two years in the Sun coal mines in western Pennsylvania outside Pittsburgh -- the same mines that his father and older brother had worked. With his brother, he joined the Army in 1943 and served as an X-ray technician during World War II at the hospital at Fort Meade.

State authorities ordered yesterday that a Dundalk day care center close temporarily, as state and Baltimore County officials investigated a report of possible child abuse at the facility. The operator has 72 hours to appeal the 30-day closure. A former employee at Jack and Jill Child Care Center in the 400 block of Westfield Road called police Tuesday - at first anonymously - to say a child was bound by tape and that children were put into a dark basement, said Cpl. Mike Hill, a county police spokesman.

When the new Deerfield Elementary opens on the same Edgewood campus it will share with a high and middle school, it will include an amenity designed to help retain teachers at all three schools. The $26 million school, set for a spring 2008 groundbreaking on land behind the existing building, will house a day care center for staff at Deerfield and at Edgewood high and middle schools. It is Harford County's first such venture and one that is much welcomed, according to a survey of the staff at the three schools.

ZHENGZHOU, China -- A few days ago, an alarmed teacher at a day care center in this city south of Beijing called emergency services when some of her charges began to vomit. Ambulances rushed to Xinxin Day Care, and doctors later treated about 50 youngsters. The culprit was tainted soy milk, but it was nothing dire, and the children were home by dusk. However, the way in which local authorities handled the case - by suppressing the news - added to the parents' anguish and the concerns about the safety of food processing in China.

The first Student Day Care Center at Towson University served eight children in a converted storage area. It then moved to a building where generations of teachers have been trained. Now, with that academic building set to be knocked down to make way for a bigger structure, the day care center is moving on to much larger quarters. On Monday, the center opens in its new, $4.5 million home. Harriet Douthirt, the director of the day care center, said the new building will allow the operation to expand and meet a growing demand.

ROCKVILLE -- The father of an 8-year-old boy charged with shooting and wounding a 7-year-old girl in a Germantown day care center showed his son "in great detail" how to handle, load and fire a .38-caliber revolver the night before the child smuggled the gun into the day care center, the Montgomery County state's attorney said yesterday. The father, John Linwood Hall Sr., was arraigned yesterday on charges of illegal possession of a firearm, storing a firearm in a location accessible by an unsupervised minor and contributing to the delinquency of a minor.