Elementary School

On the day after the recent massacre at an elementary school in Newtown, Conn., police in Newport Beach, Calif., took a man into custody for allegedly firing more than 50 rounds from a semi-automatic handgun in the parking lot of a shopping mall. He aimed into the air and no one was hit, though one person was hurt slightly while running away. Police say 42-year-old Marcos Gurrola was destitute and frustrated with his circumstances. Firing dozens of rounds at the sky was his way of venting.

Calvert Hall College High School is mourning the loss of Josephine Grace Gay, 7, a victim in the Newtown, Conn., elementary school shooting whose father attended the Catholic preparatory school in Towson. Robert Gay graduated from Calvert Hall in 1978. In an email to alumni and others, school President Thomas Zoppo said Josephine died in Friday's massacre, three days after her seventh birthday. "Our particular thoughts and prayers go out to the Newtown ... community, most especially Bob, his wife Michele, and daughters Sophia and Marie," Zoppo said in a statement.

What next? Does a gunman go into a church and start shooting up the choir? How about a hospital, pick off one baby after another in the newborn unit? There seems to be no bottom anymore. This time, it was 20 children and six teachers and staff shot to death in an elementary school in Connecticut, plus the shooter's mother and, finally, the killer himself. Before, it was a high school, or rather, high schools, and a college campus. There was the midnight show at a movie theater, and the shopping mall earlier last week.

The Anne Arundel school board received Superintendent Kevin Maxwell's redistricting recommendation Wednesday for Crofton-area schools, which delays plans to draw boundaries for a $38 million elementary school in Odenton that a developer has promised but some area residents have opposed. The proposed school, still included in the redistricting plan, would be along Evergreen Road and is part of the school system's efforts to ease crowding at Nantucket Elementary. Those plans also include redistricting Crofton Meadows Elementary, Arundel Middle and Crofton Middle.

An elementary school student threatened a schoolmate with a bb gun during a morning school bus ride Wednesday in Northwest Baltimore, according to a city schools spokeswoman. Both students were boys, on a bus bound for Arlington Elementary School, said Edie House Foster, the spokeswoman. The threat was reported to school officials, and an investigation was launched by school police. House Foster said she did not know who reported the threat, nor did she know whether school police were able to find the weapon involved.

At first glance, it may seem a bit petty for people in any community to complain that it's their turn for a replacement school, as happened earlier this week at a meeting of the advisory Abingdon Community Council. And for that sentiment to become the rallying cry for folks in Havre de Grace seeking a new high school. From a very real perspective, however, just about every community in Harford County can legitimately claim one of its public school buildings needs to be replaced or renovated top to bottom.

When you enter Julie Chang's world languages class at Waverly Elementary School in Ellicott City, you leave English at the door. Then, if you know the answer to a question and are told to " qing ju shou ," you raise your hand. If you're told, " bu shou hua ," then you must keep quiet. And if someone asks about the weather and it's sunny outside, you say, " yin tian . " Chang teaches Chinese, one of two languages offered in the Howard County school system's world languages pilot, which is in its second year at Laurel Woods and Waverly elementary schools.

A second grader at Sandy Plains Elementary School in Dundalk was seriously injured on his morning walk to school Monday when he was struck by a car, according to Baltimore County officials. Emergency personnel responded to the scene near the school, located in the 8300 block of Kavanagh Road, about 8:30 a.m. and found the injured boy, who is 8 years old, according to Lt. Jay Ringgold, the spokesman. The boy was transported to the pediatric trauma center at Johns Hopkins Hospital, Ringgold said.

In her 22 years at Johnston Square Elementary School, Janice Shelford has spent more than $15,000 of her own money at the Dollar Store and Staples for school supplies for her students. But as of Thursday, she and dozens of other teachers will be heading to a new supply store whose impact on their classrooms will be priceless - literally. Johnston Square served as the launch site of the Wish-List Depot, a nonprofit organization that set up a free store where the school's 24 teachers, and eventually 54 others from three neighboring schools, can stock up on classroom supplies at no cost to the schools or the teachers.

The pursuit and arrest of a burglary suspect disrupted dismissal at a Pasadena elementary school Thursday. Jason Thomas Donaldson, 27, of Severn, faces several burglary-related charges, police said. After a neighbor spotted him trying to break into a home in the 8400 block of Alvin Road, Donaldson led police on a nearly one-hour chase through the Lake Shore neighborhood and onto the grounds of Lake Shore Elementary. Anne Arundel County police responded shortly after 3 p.m. to a neighbor's report of an attempted burglary.