First School

You'd think that after 25 years, it would be all grown up, but Columbia's first school is still a kid at heart. And tomorrow Bryant Woods Elementary will celebrate with a party a fourth-grader would love.In fact, it was Leslie Weinberg's fourth-grade enrichment tryout class, a group of 22 students in the gifted and talented program, who worked all year coming up with activities to mark the school's 25th anniversary."I think it was a really fun experience because you got to make something happen and adults don't have to do everything," said Michael Hoffman.

For all the horrible scenarios I had in mind for my first day of high school, a shooting never crossed my mind. It was fourth period and we were just about to watch a movie when the intercom crackled. My principal declared, "We are in a lockdown. " Initially, I wasn't scared. I was curious. Even excited. My whole class was. Because "lockdown" sounded like something straight out of "CSI. " But we had no idea that someone had just gotten shot. We had no idea that soon, the whole school - the whole community - would be in a state which my government teacher labeled "controlled chaos.

Bushy Park Elementary School - which boasts some of the county's highest test scores and routinely garners praise from parents, pupils and staff members - didn't become top notch by accident. Principal Nancy Kalin attributes the school's success to lots of work: hard work by the pupils, teamwork by the staff members and administrators. That work was recognized yesterday by Sens. Paul S. Sarbanes and Barbara A. Mikulski, who presented Kalin and her small suburban school with the prestigious Senate Productivity Award.

Breaking from the tradition of beginning the school year with the city's Blue Ribbon recipients and highest performers, Baltimore schools CEO Andrés Alonso personally welcomed back students and staff who will take part in radical transformations at schools that have struggled with academics. Alonso said he decided to visit schools this year that have "all of the ingredients to be a great school, but their outcomes haven't shown it. " It was a decision in line with the unusual start to the school year, with 77,000 students returning from summer vacation two days late — the first time in recent memory that opening day has been delayed — because of power outages caused by Hurricane Irene.

Marion Henrietta Pelton, a retired educator who was one of the first psychologists for Baltimore County public schools, died Tuesday of complications from old age at Bel Air Health and Rehabilitation Center in Bel Air. The longtime Lutherville resident was 95. Born in Erie, Pa., Ms. Pelton attended Academy High there until her senior year. She graduated in 1930 from Deering High School in Portland, Maine. In 1934, she earned a bachelor's degree in kindergarten-primary curriculum from what is now Edinboro University of Pennsylvania.

Selina Schoenfeld, who taught in Baltimore public schools for over 30 years, died Wednesday of cancer at Johns Hopkins Hospital. The resident of Park Heights Avenue was 81.Services for Mrs. Schoenfeld were being held today at Sol Levinson & Bros. funeral establishment, 6010 Reisterstown Road.She retired in 1977 as a reading specialist at Cross Country Elementary School.The former Selina Rabinowitz was a native of Baltimore and a graduate of Eastern High School and the teachers' college that is now Towson State University.

Harford County's C. Milton Wright could vie with Montgomery County's Class 4A football power Sherwood. In Class 3A, Randallstown and Annapolis could challenge Seneca Valley. And Hereford, City and Baltimore's Dunbar could compete for Class 2A titles.These are the possibilities if reclassification proposals at yesterday's state association meeting are upheld at the Board of Control session in early December.Based on the enrollment of ninth-through-11th graders at each of the state association's members, schools were reclassified for all sports competition during the 1999-2000 school year.

Orchestra expands its Adopt-a-School program The Adopt-a-School partnership program has added two schools in the 2004-2005 season. Tyler Heights Elementary and Van Bokkelen Elementary, the first school outside Annapolis city limits to be adopted by the Annapolis Symphony Orchestra, are being added to the existing program that includes Germantown Elementary and Annapolis Middle School. Adopt-a-School puts professional musicians in string music classes on a monthly basis to help develop students' skills and encourage participation in the strings program.

The difference between the appearance and the reality of ethical conflict is more narrowly drawn by the public these days, something that any conscientious official must recognize.So there should have been ample warning for the Harford County school system that paying for a retreat for administrators with donations from vendors to the county schools was improper.Yes, it may save $20,000 from the education budget to hold the leadership meeting for 180 people in Harper's Ferry, W. Va., this week.

New commissioners return fate of former school to Hampstead The county commissioners voted unanimously yesterday to halt the auction of the former Hampstead Elementary School, saying the town should decide the future of a building considered key to its downtown redevelopment. "We want the town to be in charge," said Commissioner Dean L. Minnich. "We are suspending the auction pending further discussion with the town. We want to resolve this as soon as possible." Hampstead sued the county to stop the auction after former Commissioners Donald I. Dell and Robin Bartlett Frazier opted to proceed with the sale.

Montgomery County school board officials deserve congratulations for their decision this week to allow the first charter school to open in the district. For years, board members resisted pressure to authorize charter schools, arguing they would distract from efforts to improve a school system that was already regarded as one of the best in the country. The dynamic there was the same one that has slowed the charter school movement in nearly every Maryland school district; critics complain that everywhere except Baltimore City, local officials have simply sought to avoid the competition from publicly financed but independently operated charters.

Baltimore city schools CEO Andrés A. Alonso will no doubt have a lot on his mind Monday morning when students pour off buses and sidewalks and through schoolhouse doors, marking the noisy beginning of another academic year. It's unlikely that he'll be thinking of the Rev. John Nelson McJilton, an Episcopal rector, poet and educator who served as the school system's first superintendent in the 19th century. But a Connecticut Superior Court judge, some 300 miles away in Waterbury, Conn.

Dunbar became the first Baltimore City team to win a regional softball championship Saturday when the Poets topped the Institute of Business and Entrepreneurship (formerly Walbrook), 17-7, to take the Class 1A South title. Freshman Daunyea Felton, who has pitched every inning of the Poets' 17-0 season, allowed only four hits and struck out eight. Shanette Parker went 4-for-4 with a triple and three doubles and drove in three runs. Shylia Buie went 3-for-4 with two RBIs while Jessica Paschall and Candice DeShields each had three hits.

The Anne Arundel County Board of Education voted unanimously Wednesday to approve a new four-year contract for Superintendent Kevin M. Maxwell, keeping the leader of the state's fifth largest school system in place four more years. Maxwell's new contact pays the superintendent $257,000 annually and calls for the board to contribute $20,000 each year to a retirement fund, an increase over his current $238,703 annual salary. The contact doesn't contain automatic salary increases, but gives the board the option of awarding a pay increase or bonus based upon performance.

Sharon L. Harris found out she would lead Baltimore County's first public charter school, Imagine Discovery, this spring, when she was an assistant principal at Windsor Mill Middle. Harris, 49, hasn't stopped moving since, selecting teachers (about 30), picking uniforms (yellow and navy blue) and fielding questions from anxious parents. Imagine Discovery serves more than 450 kindergarten-through-fourth-grade students, with plans to expand to eighth grade. Imagine Schools, an Arlington, Va.-based nonprofit with more than 70 schools and about 37,000 students, operates the school.

In 1854, the Harford County Board of School Commissioners purchased land for the construction of Mount Horeb School, after the official establishment of public schools in Harford County on February 27, 1850. Evidence from the board's minutes shows that the school was built on one-fourth of an acre at a cost of $600. Mount Horeb, identified as school 10, 4th Election District, had a privy and benches instead of desks. In 1865, a state assessment of schools concluded that such a rural school was "destitute of everything that looks to comfort or convenience."

From: Peggie W. CritzerBel AirEach time I read an article or a letter pertaining to the public school system in Harford County, included is this (or a similar) listregarding those involved in the system: teachers, administrators, parents.While I acknowledge the involvement of all these branches of our educational system, I also know there is another important element that makes our system work -- without it the system could come toa screeching halt. Call them "Educational Support Personnel -- ESP."

Baltimore's Paul Laurence Dunbar High School has won a $657,957 grant from RJR Nabisco -- making the citywide school one of only 15 in the country and the only one in the region to win one of the three-year grants, according to the company.The so-called "Next Century Schools" grants are intended to spur radical change in education by funding experimental reform plans. They were first awarded a year ago. Dunbar, chosen from 1,600 applicants nationwide -- including 49 in Maryland -- is the first school in the state to win one of the grants, which can be for a maximum of $750,000.

Barbara Schuyler-Haas Elder, an advocate of day care for school-age children and the first director of Baltimore's Office of Children and Youth, died of lung cancer Thursday at the Gilchrist Center for Hospice Care. The Bolton Hill resident was 83. "She was passionate about her work. Children were her life," said her daughter, Cynthia Lindsay Haas-Pundel of Bolton Hill. Ms. Elder was born in Trenton, N.J., and raised in nearby Burlington. She graduated from her hometown high school in 1939 and earned a bachelor's degree from Trenton State Teachers College in 1945.

It was supposed to be Andrew Gavelek's first meeting as a voting member of the Howard County Board of Education. But a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity postponed the student board member's historic day. "He didn't miss much," Diane Mikulis, the board chairman, said of Thursday night's meeting. "It was a light agenda." Gavelek, a 16-year-old rising senior at Reservoir High School, was aboard the U.S. Coast Guard cutter Shearwater, an 87-foot patrol boat, off the coast of North Carolina.