Enrollment

Every few years, officials of the county government and its school system pour too much time and resources into a process that creates ill feelings among parents and children and headaches all around, all because no one seems able to predict with any degree of certainty where local classroom populations will bulge and where they will shrink. School redistricting is inevitable, of course, but the seemingly endless need for wholesale changes to the map points toward systemic flaws.

Janet Virginia Garrity, who enrolled in college at age 47 and went on to earn a master's degree in social work, died of heart disease Tuesday at Brightview Assisted Living in Towson. She was 81 and lived in Salisbury. Born Janet Virginia Green in Baltimore, she was raised on Chesley Avenue in Hamilton and attended Hamilton Elementary School, where she met her future husband, Robert J. Garrity. She was a 1950 Eastern High School graduate but did not pursue a plan to go to St. Mary's College because her father had recently died.

Parents interested in having their children participate in the Johns Hopkins University Center for Talented Youth have until Nov. 30 to enroll them. The program is for bright students in second through eighth grades. The students must take tests, offered locally, to qualify them for CTY's summer or online courses for academically gifted students. Financial aid is available for children eligible for the free- and reduced-price lunch program. Information can be found by e-mailing ctyinfo@jhu.

Marcus Leak, a promising Maryland wide receiver who averaged 17.1 yards per catch before being sidelined late last season with a broken toe, has withdrawn from the school but says he plans to return next year. Even with the rising junior's departure, wide receiver remains one of Maryland's deepest positions. But his decision is a blow because Leak, who is from Charlotte, N.C., had emerged as a deep threat and complement to leading playmaker Stefon Diggs. Leak, who finished second on the team with 23 receptions in just seven games, cited unspecified “personal issues.” A source said the sophomore was not being punished and was in good academic standing.

Enrollment at Anne Arundel Community College has increased 5 percent for the fall semester. And with more students on campus, there are more traffic and parking headaches as well as a premium on class space. Students have flooded community colleges during the nation's economic downturn, looking for bargain-rate classes to burnish their resumes. In addition to adding more online courses to deal with the influx, AACC has begun offering classes in the middle of the night. Still, the college turns away more than 200 qualified students to its nursing trainee program each year, though the school has worked to more efficiently manage professors' schedules to accommodate more students.

By the start of classes in August 2011, white students in Howard County are expected to be a minority, joining those in Baltimore County. The two school systems are riding a demographic wave that carries broad implications for how students are taught. Baltimore County two years ago joined Baltimore City and Montgomery, Prince George's, Charles and Somerset counties as Maryland jurisdictions where minorities outnumber white students in public schools, although the development was little noticed at the time.

Anne Arundel Community College recently reported that 1991 summer enrollment set a new record at the school.Enrollment reached a final count of 4,161 students, up by 188 over the 1990 summer term. The college offered the same number of courses this summer and last, but added class sections to accommodate demand for courses in fields such as English.

After eight years of significant growth, enrollment in Anne Arundel Community College has dropped off slightly this year for the first time.The number of students enrolling this fall totaled 12,077, 2.6 percent fewer than last fall's record of 12,401.It marks the second semester in which enrollments have declined. In the spring, 3 percent fewer students enrolled than during the 1991 spring semester.College officials attributed that decrease less to tuition hikes and more to students' career demands and lack of free time.

BOSTON -- Higher education has been a prime means of transporting black Americans into the economic mainstream even before the 1960s civil rights revolution. But that means may be sputtering a bit, according to recent statistics.While the enrollment of African-Americans in colleges and HTC universities has risen remarkably over the last three decades, the bulk of that growth came in the 1970s and slowed in later years. Today, some analysts see a widening gap in college attendance between black and white high school graduates.

Education Alternatives Inc. and the Baltimore school system have resolved differences in student enrollment counts, but the company stills owes the city $338,500 it received based on overstated enrollment at "Tesseract" schools, city officials said yesterday.The city concluded three weeks ago that EAI owed about $500,000 based on overstated enrollment, but the figure was reduced to $338,500 yesterday based on a revised state audit.EAI has continued challenging the enrollment numbers and for the past two days has sought a further "adjustment" that would erase at least part of the $338,500 debt.

Coppin State University should enroll higher-caliber freshmen, focus more on transfer and returning students, and reorganize its academics and administration, a committee plans to report Wednesday to the University System of Maryland Board of Regents. The recommendations, from a panel convened in December to study Coppin State, are meant to turn around the stressed institution, one of Maryland's four historically black colleges and universities. The school has one of the lowest six-year graduation rates for first-time, full-time students in the country at 15 percent as of fiscal year 2012 and is underenrolled by more than 2,000 students, the committee said.

Sixteen health centers in Maryland will share in $1.7 million in federal funding to help enroll uninsured residents in health plans under health care reform. The money is part of $150 million the federal Department of Health and Human Services announced Thursday it was making available to health centers around the country. The money will be used to hire new staff, train existing staff and hold community outreach events. Health centers will help consumers understand their coverage options and determine their eligibility.

Enrollment in a controversial program that provides free cell phone service to low-income families has increased faster in Maryland than any other state in the nation, jumping nearly 90-fold since 2008 — renewing scrutiny on Capitol Hill over its management. The Lifeline program, created in 1984 to soften the impact of telephone deregulation on low-income families, had nearly 509,000 subscribers in the state last year, up from 5,821 in 2008. Growth in Maryland was nearly 40 times greater than the national average.

Apparently, private colleges are finding that there's just so far you can push families to pay for tuition and fees. Schools have been increasing their grants to lure students. A study released today by the National Association of College and University Business Offices found that the so-called tuition discounting - how much school grants make up of tuition and fee revenue - reached an all time high of 44.3 percent for incoming freshman in 2011. And the group said that level is expected to reach 45 percent for 2012.

As President Fred Lazarus IV expanded the Maryland Institute College of Art over the past 35 years and helped turn it into one of the nation's leading arts colleges, supporters say, he has also focused on Baltimore - to the betterment of his college and his city. Lazarus, 71, announced Monday that he would retire in May 2014. Upon hearing the news, the city's cultural and civic leaders praised his foresight, saying he realized early on that improving life both in Baltimore and at the 187-year-old school went hand-in-hand.

Growing up in the 1970s, I never set foot in a school until it was time for me to go to kindergarten. However, times have changed. Over the past three decades, the number of preschools in our country has grown exponentially, and with this growth comes the expectation that children will attend preschool in order to be "ready" for kindergarten by age 5. Unfortunately, this expectation is often accompanied by great pressure to send one's child to the...

The budget approved by the Baltimore school board last month overstated the school system's enrollment for the current academic year by 1,000 students, officials acknowledged last night. A new version of the budget, presented to the public this week, says there are 82,381 children attending city schools this year. The version that the school board approved said there are 83,312. It was a mistake that could have had multimillion-dollar implications for the system, which receives government funds based on the number of students it serves.

Coppin State University is unable to pay its adjunct professors on time this month, the latest in a string of problems for the embattled college. In an email obtained by The Baltimore Sun, Habtu Braha, the interim associate vice president for academic affairs, wrote to adjunct faculty members on Monday that their first paychecks of the semester would be late. "This delay in the processing of contracts was caused by a confluence of many issues ... due to budgetary constraints, extended registration processes, low course enrollments and subsequent cancellation of classes," he wrote.

Even as enrollment in Harford County Public Schools is projected to decrease again in the coming academic year, the school system is seeking an increase of $15.1 million, which would bring spending to $442.8 million in the spending year that begins July 1, 2013. Meanwhile, enrollment dropped from November 2011 to November of this year by 356 students to a total of 37,868. Incremental declines in enrollment have been the rule for the past several years, even as spending has continued to increase.