Eighth Grade

This table shows overall 2002 index scores from the Maryland School Performance Assessment Program for Howard County third-, fifth- and eighth-grade pupils. The score is equivalent to the percentage of pupils who scored at a satisfactory level on the MSPAP test. Scores from 2001 are in parenthesis. Third Grade: Reading - 53 percent (60.1) Writing - 55.7 (65.1) Language uses - 58.4 (62.5) Science - 46.9 (54.9) Social studies - 46 (56.1) Mathematics - 44.6 (57.8) Fifth Grade: Reading - 61.4 (66.5)

St. James Academy offers two merit scholarships, the Elizabeth I. Legenhausen Scholarship and the F. Karl Adler Scholarship. Kaitlyn Sydnor, entering sixth grade, was awarded the Elizabeth I. Legenhausen Scholarship. Kaitlyn is a well-rounded student with a passion for athletics. She brings a positive presence to our school community. To apply for the F. Karl Adler Scholarship, please submit application materials by April 15. Both scholarships were established for new students entering third through eighth grade to honor academic excellence and are for one half of tuition.

Howard County students again outperformed their peers in Maryland on the state's annual achievement exams for schools, but eighth-grade scores dropped in a majority of subject areas for the second year in a row, county school officials announced yesterday.The overall score for Howard students on the Maryland School Performance Assessment Program (MSPAP) was slightly better than last year's: 57.9 percent of students achieved a satisfactory or higher on the 1997 tests -- given in the spring -- compared with 56.9 the year before.

With the season of celebration over and many of our school-age children of various grade levels officially "promoted," it seems like a good time to sit back and ask: Why? Specifically, why are promotion ceremonies at the arbitrary grades of pre-kindergarten, kindergarten, fifth grade and eighth grade even necessary? And after a simple review of the recently released MSA scores, it appears even more apt that a major shift in our educational culture occurs for there is little to celebrate.

Shaine Woodard, a 13-year-old eighth-grader, was ready for the summer and the challenges of high school as he bolted down the halls of Wilde Lake Middle School, but the sights and sounds of 85 staffers, lined up to greet him, slowed his quick strides. The adults - standing on both sides of the school's hallway near the front entrance - whistled, shouted, cheered and clapped as Woodard and 189 other eighth-graders left the building yesterday for the last time. The Wilde Lake Middle School "clap-out" is an annual send off that the staff gives as a final salute to graduating eighth-graders.

The ceremony, one parent remarked, was like an eighth-grade kiss: awkward but sweet, and by the end, more than a little wet.Morrell Park Elementary-Middle School graduated its first class of eighth-graders yesterday during a carefully scripted two-hour program that took more than a year to plan and about $2,000 to put together.Plants, flowers and politicians filled the sweltering school gymnasium, balloons covered the worn basketball backboards, and the 62 graduates took turns reciting poetry, mouthing the words to Mariah Carey songs, and giving speeches even as they sweated through their caps and gowns (blue for the boys, yellow for the girls)

Had you told Broadneck senior Natasha Davies before high school that she would be going to the University of Denver on a lacrosse scholarship, she would have stopped you cold like all those wannabe goal scorers that come her way. Lacrosse? No way. Davies has been a soccer lifer. And Denver? That's a long way from home. But with her natural athletic ability, strong work ethic and feisty ways, Davies has proven herself more than just a quick study. The girl who didn't pick up a lacrosse stick until eighth grade is the county's top returning defender, a team captain for the No. 3 Bruins and the key piece to their season this spring.

Robert H. Merriman says the only way his 14-year-old son will succeed in Howard County schools is if they flunk him.In an unusual move, Merriman has filed a lawsuit against the Howard County school board demanding that his son be allowed to repeat eighth grade. For now, the boy is going to school in the family's basement office.Merriman alleges that his son, Robert H. Merriman IV, is not ready academically for high school, pointing to the boy's continuing difficulties with basic math. He wants his son, who has a learning disability, to have a decent high school record when he starts applying to colleges, which look at academic performance beginning with the ninth grade.

MAKING A wish traditionally involves wishing wells, birthday cakes or shooting stars. But for eighth-graders at Oakland Mills Middle School, wishes are entrusted to paper cranes - 1,000 of them, to be precise. The pupils have been folding origami cranes since March, as a part of the Peace Crane Project, said Shiney Ann John, eighth-grade team leader and project coordinator. The project is based on the book "Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes" by Eleanor Coerr. It is the true story of a Japanese girl who develops leukemia as a result of the bombing of Hiroshima.

St. Paul's Lutheran plans to open middle schoolSt. Paul's Lutheran School will open a middle school beginning with sixth grade in 1997-1998, adding a seventh grade in 1998-1999 and an eighth grade in 1999-2000.The church is at 308 Oak Manor Drive in Glen Burnie.Information: 410-766-5790.Pub Date: 7/11/97

Remember junior high schools? The debate over what grade configurations are right for school systems has been alive for decades, but a research paper released yesterday provides more evidence that students in K-8 schools do better academically and are less likely to drop out than students in free-standing middle schools. "I do think that the evidence now shows that the transition to middle school is very difficult academically for many students and that middle schools themselves often struggle," said Harvard University  professor Martin West.

Portraying the Living Stations of the Cross is an annual Lenten ritual that the 13 eighth-grade students at St. Casimir Catholic School in Canton anticipate with as much fervor as the other crowning events that define their last months of grammar school. "I remember seeing this when I was in kindergarten," said Leonard Rulka, who portrayed the Apostle John. "I could not wait until it was my turn to be in it. " Prayers at the 14 stations, which are typically sculptures adorning the side walls of the sanctuary, are a customary Lenten observance for Catholics.

River Hill senior Scott Trench is what his wrestling coach Brandon Lauer calls "a throwback" - a high school athlete who excels not at one or even two sports, but three. "It's hard to excel at the highest level nowadays in three different varsity sports," Lauer said. "But Scott brings a tremendous work ethic. You know you can rely on him to work hard, and that's why he succeeds in athletics and academics." Trench, 18 with a 3.9 grade-point average, was the kicker and tight end for the Hawks' football team that won the state Class 2A championship; he wrestled in the 171-pound weight class and finished this season as the state runner-up; and now he heads into the lacrosse season where he is the Hawks faceoff man. "He's a guy I'm going to talk to my teams about for years," Lauer said.

Broadneck's Morgan O'Brien is a coaches' All-County senior defender and is set to play lacrosse at the Naval Academy. A two-year starter, O'Brien received an appointment to Navy in October, contingent on her attending Naval Academy Preparatory School in Newport, R.I., for a year. With a 3.5 grade point average and an SAT score of 1,500, O'Brien plans to get into the medical field. O'Brien is one of five team captains on the Bruins and relishes her role as a defender. Bruins coach Karen Tengwall said defenders such as O'Brien don't get enough credit for a team's success.

About one-third of America's eighth-grade students, and about one in four high school seniors, are proficient writers, according to results of a nationwide test released yesterday. The test, administered last year, showed that there were modest increases in the writing skills of low-performing students since the last time a similar exam was given, in 2002. But the skills of high-performing eighth- and 12th-graders remained flat or declined. Girls far outperformed boys in the test, with 41 percent of eighth-grade girls scoring at or above the proficient level, compared with 20 percent of eighth-grade boys.

The Rev. Wayne George Funk, the pastor of a Roman Catholic church in Frederick who had earlier served in the Northwood section of Northeast Baltimore, died of cancer Saturday at Frederick Memorial Hospital. He was 70. Born in Baltimore and raised in Hamilton, he attended St. Dominic's Parochial School and at the end of eighth-grade entered the seminary at the old St. Charles College in Catonsville. He completed four years of high school and two years of college there. According to his biography, in the fall of 1957 he was assigned to the Pontifical North American College in Rome, where he received a bachelor's degree in philosophy in 1959 and a licentiate in sacred theology in 1963, both degrees granted by the Pontifical Gregorian University.

A story in the Dec. 18 Howard County edition of The Sun erroneously described teacher David Weeks. Mr. Weeks teaches humanities at Glenelg Country School for students in 10th, 11th and 12th grades. Sandy Bishop is the eighth-grade social studies teacher in charge of that grade's oral history project.The Sun regrets the error.

Six students will represent St. John the Evangelist School in the county Science and Technology Fair, which will take place March 23 at Anne Arundel Community College.The students and their projects are: Kimberly Hartka, eighth grade, "Which container retains a hamburger's heat the longest?"; Rebecca Kratz, eighth grade, "Which concentration of acid rain affects fescue grass?"; Chad Langville, eighth grade, "Which (airplane) wing tip shape has the maximum efficiency?"; Kathleen McMurray, seventh grade, "How does music affect a gerbil's heartbeat?"

Your child has a hand up to answer the teacher's question, but the teacher calls on Andrew instead. Calls on him to sit down. To pay attention. To stop bothering his neighbor. Does Andrew have attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder? No. Is he a natural-born troublemaker? No. He is hungry. He didn't have breakfast, so he's having a hard time paying attention. Based on his family's income, Andrew qualifies for free breakfast and lunch at the school. But his mother didn't apply. Why? Maybe she couldn't read the application forms.

There's a lot of good news in the results of this year's state assessment tests. Some gains were scored in all 24 districts, and it's especially noteworthy that minority students are closing the achievement gap, a key goal of the federal No Child Left Behind law. Students with disabilities are making similar progress. Baltimore, which is constantly bringing up the rear among the state's school districts, showed improvements in nearly every tested grade. But while the city and the state are moving in the right direction, there are still gaps that need to be addressed.