High School Students

The students surveyed the photographs spread out on the table - a mix of black-and-white and color pictures depicting schoolchildren, a wedding and other family moments. "This is gonna be hard," said senior Harry Mikula, 17, looking at a partially discolored fourth-grade class photo dated 1968-1969. Katie Calkins, his teacher at Patapsco High School and Center for the Arts, picked up a more recent picture of an older woman that was stuck to another photograph, posing a different problem.

I have attended Towson High School for four years, and the change in class size this year was a dramatic shift. Your recent article made clear how cutting 200 high school teachers in the Baltimore County School System has negatively affected students and teachers ("Baltimore County high schools see class sizes grow," May 12). Thirty-two percent of classes have more than 30 students this year, a 22 percent increase in one year. This will not only make it hard for students to get individualized attention, but the classes will also become more challenging for teachers.

Forty-four of the nation's brightest high school students are in Baltimore to test their brains about the brain — in a two-day neuroscience competition that started Sunday morning with a visit to the cadaver laboratory in the University of Maryland School of Medicine and, for many of the teenagers, their first encounter with gray matter. Some had observed sheep's brains and rabbit brains in biology class, and all had studied plastic brain models and atlases as they prepared for the fifth annual U.S. National Brain Bee, founded by a University of Maryland neuroscientist.

More than 100 parents and students gathered at Wilde Lake High School in Columbia on Thursday night to learn about how to prevent of cyberbullying and hear details of the Howard County public schools' anti-bullying policy. Thursday's forum was in the works before the Easter Day suicide of a Glenelg High School sophomore who had been bullied online. But experts say the conversation is especially timely given the threat of copy-cat suicides. "Cyberbullying doesn't directly lead to suicide," said Sameer Hinduja, the forum's keynote speaker and co-director of the Cyberbullying Research Center.

A rear seat belt that inflates like an airbag upon impact. A radar-based technology that warns of an impending collision. A car that does the parallel parking for you. All these cutting-edge safety-related technologies developed by Ford Motor Co. were on display Wednesday for high school students in a Johns Hopkins University summer engineering program. The Dearborn, Mich.-based auto manufacturer called the event an opportunity for prospective engineers of the future to explore some of the car safety technologies that are about to emerge for the ultimate test drive in the marketplace.

Jeremy Dy was among a small group of Chesapeake Science Point Public Charter School students who took the PSAT/NMSQT, a national standardized test considered a precursor to college entrance exams, during the past school year. He and his peers excelled at the test, which is good, because they might be retaking it a few times. While most students take the test during 10th and 11th grades, some CSP students were tested as sixth-graders. Their efforts illustrate how students at the Hanover charter school are excelling at national levels, particularly in math.

Parents, don't panic if your son or daughter doesn't come home from high school today with a report card.Your child isn't hiding it. The dog didn't eat it.Anne Arundel County school officials announced yesterday that report cards for high school students will be delayed nearly a week because of problems in computing new academic eligibility for students involved in extracurricular activities.High school students will receive their report cards Tuesday, said school spokeswoman Nancy Jane Adams.

Devron Troy Young, a senior acting student at the Baltimore School for the Arts, recently won an award of $1,500 from the National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts. Also receiving $1,500 awards were visual artist Matthew Richard Saunders, a senior at Towson High School, and Jillian Lynn Harris, a modern dancer and senior at Oakland Mills High School in Columbia.These young artists were among 301 high school students throughout the country who shared $177,700 in cash awards given by the NFAA after its annual talent search.

Five Carroll County high school students have written winning love poetry for a contest sponsored by the Carroll County Poetry Forum.The winners take the stage tomorrow night at the forum's "Poems for St. Valentine's: A Poetry Reading."A winning entry was chosen from each of the high schools. The subject of the contest was in keeping with the spirit of Valentine's Day -- love. Not all of the compositions started out with that theme in mind, however.Nicole Welsh, a 15 year-old sophomore at Francis Scott Key High School, says her untitled entry did not start out as a love poem.

WASHINGTON -- In a disturbing trend over the past six years, more high school students are using drugs and fewer consider drug use harmful, a new study indicates.Almost a third of American high school seniors -- and 13 percent of eighth-graders -- have used marijuana at least once in the last year, federal officials said, citing overall drug rates that are higher than in recent years but still lower than in the 1970s and early 1980s.As drug use climbs, the number of teen-agers expressing disapproval of drugs and concern about negative health effects from drug use have gone down, according to the federally funded study released yesterday by the University of Michigan.

I am glad that speed cameras have been installed on South Rolling Road. They have encouraged people to drive slower, which helps make it safer for me and other Catonsville High School students who walk to school. I appreciate Del. Jim Malone's and Councilman Tom Quirk's help in getting the cameras installed. It has made a major difference. Brian Neighoff Catonsville High School

A monthly Storytime at Essex Library includes all the trappings familiar to its pre-school participants — books, puppets, songs, games and a crafts table. But this program, organized by Spanish language students at a nearby high school, gives children the chance to listen, sing and play in two languages. "Welcome to la granja, amigos," said Chesapeake High School sophomore Amanda Ambrose, who donned a straw hat and jeans in keeping with farm theme of the hour. During the bilingual story hour, the hosts switch back and forth from English to Spanish as they read to and entertain the children.

A historic Baltimore Catholic school will name its community center in honor of Bill and Camille Cosby, the biggest donors in the school's 184-year history and fierce champions of education, the school announced Friday. St. Frances Academy, which serves 162 primarily low-income high school students, will host the comedian, his wife and their relatives in a ceremony at the St. Frances Community Center on April 20. In addition to giving $2 million to St. Frances in 2005 to support its scholarship program, Camille Cosby also has a strong connection to the founders of the Baltimore school, having been educated by the Oblate Sisters of Providence, the oldest order of African-American nuns in the country, for seven years.

now playing "21 Jump Street" (R). Two cops join a secret unit and use their youthful appearances to go under cover as high-school students. TownMall Cinemas (1:30, 4:30, 7:40, 10:15 p.m.) "A Thousand Words" (PG-13). In this comedy, Eddie Murphy plays a literary agent who stretches the truth on a business deal, and is then forced to realize the consequence of every word he speaks. With Kerry Washington, Cliff Curtis, Clark Duke and Allison Janney. TownMall Cinemas (1:40, 4:40, 7:45, 10:10 p.m.)

Carson Scholars Veronica Rittie, a junior at Mount de Sales Academy, was one of nine high school students from Baltimore County named 2012 Carson Scholars. Rittie was among 402 students in grades 4-11 recognized by the Carson Scholars Fund for their outstanding academic achievement and humanitarian qualities. Selected students will receive a $1,000 college scholarship award as a Carson Scholar and be honored at a recognition banquet April 29 at Martin's West in Woodlawn.

A week ago, authorities were called to the campus dorm room of 19-year-old Alexander G. Song 2nd, who, according to the University of Maryland, College Park police chief, was shouting and acting out. The sophomore who grew up in Howard County told officers he was "very stressed out," the chief said, but "there was nothing that led us to believe he was a threat to himself or to others. " But by Sunday, police had Song in custody, saying he posted messages on the Internet threatening "a shooting rampage on campus.

High school students from around the county have been invited to participate Saturday in the eighth annual Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Chess Tournament.The event, which encourages youngsters to honor the memory of Dr. King, will be held in the cafeteria of North County High School.Matches begin at 9 a.m. Coaches are asked to bring chess clocks and boards with pieces.Registration fees are $9 per person, and there will be a time limit of 35 minutes per player per game.Trophies will be awarded to the first-place team.

Two Carroll high school students were arrested Friday and taken away in handcuffs after drug-sniffing dogs alerted officers to marijuana in two cars, police said.The students, a boy at Westminster High School and a girl at Liberty High School, were charged as juveniles with possession of marijuana and turned over to juvenile authorities, police said. Their ages were unavailable.Troopers from Westminster and the Special Operations Division of the state police were joined in the operations, performed at the request of school officials, by sheriff's deputies, assistant state's attorneys and K-9 units.

North County High School senior Ashely Lim didn't intend to turn the school's hallways into her own virtual art exhibition. But there on a wall in the school's physical education area is a testament to her creativity, a colorfully painted sports mural she calls "Gym" that features athletic wear, sporting equipment and a foaming splash of waves that helps give the work its energy and radiance. "Pretty, isn't it? She did a good job," said North County physical education teacher Nick Cosentino as he walked by. Then he turned to Lim and said, "It's good to see you're being recognized.

It was hard to tell whether his eyes were actually open when Derek Jones shuffled into his dimly lit kitchen at 5:45 a.m., the smell of bacon in the air. The 16-year-old didn't speak, but took directions from his mother who whispered: "I have your coffee made and your breakfast sandwich ready. " Within minutes he had munched on a banana, downed a cup of java, grabbed his egg bagel and backpack and was in the car on his way to the bus stop with his father. By 6:12 a.m. he was boarding the bus, and by 7:17 a.m., whether ready to learn or not, Jones was in his pre-calculus class at South River High School in Anne Arundel County.