Dundalk High

Music students from eight schools will perform together in a concert at 7 p.m. today at Dundalk High School.Participating schools include Berkshire, Colgate, Dundalk, Logan and Norwood elementary schools, Holabird and Dundalk middle schools, and Dundalk High School.The concert will be broadcast live on Dundalk High School's student radio station, 1630 AM.Pub Date: 3/25/98

Baltimore County schools dealt with reported threats on three separate campuses Thursday morning, as officials worked to quash rumors and assure parents their children are safe. The schools were not placed on lock down and all the rumors proved to be unfounded, officials said. "It appears at this point that a flurry of rumors is circulating on social media," said Charles Herndon, county schools spokesman. "People are understandably on edge because of recent events and these threats are really playing on people's nerves.

Ann Thomas Merritt, former chairwoman of the health and physical education departments at Dundalk High School, where she had also been athletic director, was killed in an automobile accident Monday on Interstate 695 near Parkville. She was 70. Shortly after retiring in 1984, she returned to Dundalk High School, where she worked part-time until her death as assistant principal in the school's evening education program. The program offers classes to students expelled from regular daytime school and assists them in obtaining a high school diploma.

For years, they've gathered every weekend on a grassy field in Dundalk to play tackle football. A gang of spirited, blue-collar twentysomethings, they shake hands, choose sides and, for three hours, wale the tar out of each other. So, when they heard about the first Baltimore Flag Football Festival on Saturday — an all-day, round-robin tournament at Pimlico Race Course promising $1,200 to the winner — the crew from Dundalk signed on. After all, how hard could the flag game be, once you're used to playing tackle?

An 18-year-old Centennial High School senior accused of fatally poisoning a friend by spiking his soda with cyanide and a Dundalk High School teacher accused of sexually assaulting a girl he met on the Internet were indicted yesterday in separate high-profile cases. A Howard County grand jury returned an indictment charging first-degree murder, poisoning, felony assault and reckless endangerment against Ryan T. Furlough in the death Jan. 8 of Centennial senior Benjamin Edward Vassiliev.

Driving through the steamy side streets of Dundalk last week, high school teachers Pat Zavetz and Fred Hammett were attempting to head off hundreds of teen-age nightmares.Part of a volunteer team of educators from Dundalk High School, Zavetz and Hammett are conducting an outreach program unique in Maryland: meeting with incoming freshmen in their homes and establishing a rapport between school and student before classes start.They sought to quiet the fears of high school that build during summer vacation, from dark tales of being force-fed drugs in a bathroom, to those devastating pimples or forgetting a locker combination.

Dundalk High School junior Kayla Hylock opened a savings account during her lunch period two weeks ago. And she didn't have to leave school to do it. Dundalk High and First Financial Federal Credit Union of Maryland have teamed up to start what they and trade association officials call the first student-operated credit union in the Baltimore area. The Owl Branch opened Oct. 3 for students and staff in the cafeteria. It's a way for Dundalk High to address the low financial literacy of young people, something other schools are doing by adding personal finance courses.

A 17-year-old college-bound football star at Dundalk High School was shot and killed yesterday morning when he tried to hold up a liquor store a few blocks from the school. Derrick Lemell Breedlove, a senior who planned to attend a Virginia university on a football scholarship next fall, was killed inside Modern Discount Liquors in the 6900 block of Holabird Ave. Baltimore County police said he entered the store armed with a pellet gun and was shot by a clerk after taking a bag of cash.

Baltimore County schools officials have developed a plan to improve student achievement and the graduation rate at Dundalk High School that includes replacing some school staff, fostering community ties and switching to a six-period day of classes. "It's all about moving our kids forward," said Tom Shouldice, principal of the high school since July, of what is officially called an "alternative governance plan." The plan, which the school board is to consider tonight, is part of a requisite process for schools that have repeatedly failed to meet benchmarks known as adequate yearly progress, or AYP. Under the federal No Child Left Behind Act, states must annually identify schools and school systems that miss the benchmarks.

Christina Heagy's mom dropped out of school at 16. She manages a local KFC. Her dad didn't finish school either. He works two jobs now. Her 21-year-old brother skipped college and headed for the National Guard. His girlfriend had a baby the day after Christmas. For most of her 17 years, Heagy didn't know anyone who went to college. Then she met G. Scott Kilpatrick. He's the guidance counselor whose job is to manage the futures of 300 high school seniors at Dundalk High School. It's not a place where many students have followed high school with a taste of college, or where Kilpatrick's spiel on deadlines for SATs and financial aid has meant much.

By the time most other high schools began their ritual end-of-summer awakening, the teachers at Dundalk were already a week on the job, clustered in the stuffy classrooms of a tired school that so many others had written off as a lost cause. As the English department chair started up a flight of stairs, clutching a stack of results that revealed signs of progress, she stopped to share her frustration: How, after all the changes that had been made, did only about half the 10th-graders pass the state test on the first try?

Baltimore County police have charged a couple in connection with a non-fatal stabbing outside a Dundalk High's Dairy Store that occurred after what police believe was an argument over drugs Sunday night. Shawn Allen Novak, 28, of Baltimore and Ann Marie Preston, 27, of Dundalk, were arrested Monday and face first- and second-degree assault charges, after officers were called about 10 p.m. Sunday to the 6800 of Broening Road in Dundalk for reports of an assault. They found a 32-year-old man with cuts to his upper body.

Baltimore County police have arrested two people in connection with a break-in and acts of vandalism at Dundalk High School over the weekend. Police planned to charge the two — a man and a juvenile — with second-degree burglary, theft and destruction of property. Lt. Robert McCullough, a police spokesman, said that when officers made the arrests they recovered some items stolen from the school, including a laptop. The break-in occurred before dawn on Saturday, McCullough said.

The Rev. Virginia H. Leitzel, a retired Baltimore County school teacher who later became an ordained Methodist minister, died Friday from complications of Alzheimer's disease at Gilchrist Hospice Care. She was 84. Virginia Doris Mae Hines was born at the Fort Howard Veterans Administration Hospital in eastern Baltimore County and raised in Sparrows Point. After graduating from Sparrows Point High School in 1942, she enrolled at what was then Western Maryland College, where she earned a bachelor's degree in English and history in 1946.

Baltimore County school officials will move forward with plans to build new facilities for Dundalk High and Sollers Point Technical High after a unanimous school board vote Tuesday night. The new buildings would be constructed at the current Dundalk High site, officials said. School officials determined the projected cost of building new schools was close to what has been estimated for renovations and replacements in the old facilities, said Michael Sines, executive director of physical facilities.

Baltimore County schools officials have developed a plan to improve student achievement and the graduation rate at Dundalk High School that includes replacing some school staff, fostering community ties and switching to a six-period day of classes. "It's all about moving our kids forward," said Tom Shouldice, principal of the high school since July, of what is officially called an "alternative governance plan." The plan, which the school board is to consider tonight, is part of a requisite process for schools that have repeatedly failed to meet benchmarks known as adequate yearly progress, or AYP. Under the federal No Child Left Behind Act, states must annually identify schools and school systems that miss the benchmarks.

With rehearsal about to start, the play's leading actress takes a seat at a desk, her microphone balanced atop a dictionary. She does not get up until the show is over, even as her character is killed. The actress, 17-year-old Kayla Castleman, is starring in the Dundalk High School production of Sorry, Wrong Number, a play first broadcast in 1943 on the CBS radio program Suspense. She and her classmates will read their lines into microphones rather than acting on a traditional stage, in what is thought to be the first radio play presented by a Baltimore County school.

The Yankee Rebels Drum and Bugle Corps will present the 11th annual "Dixie Stinger" indoor musical exhibition at 6:30 p.m. Saturday at Dundalk High School, 1901 Delvale Ave. Performers this year will include the Yankee Rebels Alumni Corps -- the last drum and bugle corps in Baltimore -- and the U.S. Marine Corps Drum and Bugle Corps. The show was moved to Dundalk High after a fire this month at Parkville High School.

Dundalk High School junior Kayla Hylock opened a savings account during her lunch period two weeks ago. And she didn't have to leave school to do it. Dundalk High and First Financial Federal Credit Union of Maryland have teamed up to start what they and trade association officials call the first student-operated credit union in the Baltimore area. The Owl Branch opened Oct. 3 for students and staff in the cafeteria. It's a way for Dundalk High to address the low financial literacy of young people, something other schools are doing by adding personal finance courses.