Inside The School

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina -- From the stately gates, which are as close as most civilians can approach, the colonnaded buildings of the Navy Mechanics School here offer little hint of the atrocities that took place inside during the military dictatorship that ended 15 years ago.And if the government of President Carlos Saul Menem has its way, Argentines will never get so much as a glimpse inside the school, once a notorious interrogation center where an...

Harmony Flechner, a 15-year-old sophomore at North County High School in Ferndale, was kissing her then-boyfriend last year when Assistant Principal Edie Pickens happened by and got mad.As Harmony tells it: "We gave each other a hug and like, a peck, and, uh, then she came and yelled at us and took us down to her office."Pickens said it was inappropriate behavior in school and was a personal affront, then called the students' parents and made the couple stay after school."I think she kind of overreacted," said Harmony.

It's not every day that a school holds a surprise party for the principal, but Leith Walk's Edna Greer was showered with balloons, hearts and "toot toots" by her 1,000 students in the North Baltimore elementary school all week long.At an assembly yesterday morning, glowing second- and third-graders jumped up and down in the aisles after getting "Greer hugs" for performing songs, poems and tap dances. The "toot" salutes were exclamation points between the acts and went with this year's school theme: "Take the `A' Train to Academic Success."

A 16-year-old Glenelg boy was charged with a drug offense after he crashed a car in a parking lot at Glenelg High School last week and led Howard County officers on a foot chase inside the school, county police said.The youth was arrested and released into his parents' custody.He was charged with possession of marijuana with intent to distribute, police said.His name was not released because of his age.The incident began about 10:30 a.m. Wednesday when a patrol officer stopped the boy near Ten Oaks Road and Route 32 for driving a Ford Probe with expired tags.

A 16-year-old Atholton High School student was charged with assaulting a teacher who had told him to return inside the building yesterday afternoon, Howard County police said.The Columbia youth, whose name is protected under juvenile laws, was released into the custody of his parents, said Sgt. Steve Keller, a police spokesman.The teacher, Reginald Hahne of Columbia, was not seriously injured.Mr. Hahne, 41, teaches computer and business courses at Atholton High in the 6500 block of Freetown Road in Columbia's Hickory Ridge Village.

At Reisterstown Road and Shirley Avenue yesterday morning, the morning after the kindergarten teacher Julie Lombardi was shot in the face, there were chalky circles drawn by police around the places where bullet shells landed, and there was shattered glass in the street, and you could follow the path of blood all the way from the shooting to the front door of Malcolm X Elementary School."

Gathered on the grounds of Uniontown Elementary School Friday evening, students and teachers from past and present celebrated the bond that has united their school and community for more than a century.Uniontown Elementary School is a tidy, four-room, red brick school that has been at the center of the town since 1883. The building houses four grades and kindergarten and is scheduled to be closed. Its students will be sent to a new, larger school, Runnymede Elementary, which is scheduled to open next fall.

As two dozen protesters outside Lexington Terrace Elementary denounced the principal as a "dictator" yesterday, she dismissed them as bitter parents angered by her refusal to let them "take control" of the school.Principal Guinevere R. Berry asserted that parent volunteers at the school launched their attack mainly because she stopped giving them free lunches, ordered them to stop spending days in the school "socializing" and denied their request for regular religious meetings there.The free lunches, provided to volunteers at the school for years, violated school system policy -- and sometimes meant children got no lunches because parents ate their food, the principal said during an interview inside the school.

The name says nothing about what goes on inside the Carroll County Education Center, which is why the school improvement team wants to change it.L For one thing, the word "school" isn't anywhere in the name."

A survey shows that one-third to one-half of the first- and second-graders at Mount Airy Elementary School might be getting sick from a problem in the building.The survey was done by Carroll County school officials with help from parent volunteers, who tabulated results, said Vernon Smith, director of school support services.Of the 113 children whose parents were surveyed, 47 first-graders and 17 second-graders reported one or more symptoms such as extreme fatigue, headaches, eye irritation, nasal congestion and coughing.

Dressed in their yellow and navy blue uniforms, more than 450 boys and girls stepped inside the yellow-painted hallways of Imagine Discovery yesterday morning as Baltimore County's first public charter school opened its doors, a day later than planned. Many of the children were accompanied by parents and grandparents, some with cameras in hand. The Woodlawn school started classes yesterday instead of Monday because it needed a final inspection for an occupancy permit. But the one-day delay didn't lessen the first-day jitters and excitement among those entering the building.

Some people may wear their hearts on their sleeves, but the second-graders at Manchester Elementary School added other major organs to their outfits. With glue, scissors and brown paper bags, the pupils fashioned anatomy aprons - vests on which they attached pictures of organs that they had cut out and colored in. The project was part of a Carroll County lesson plan at Manchester that culminates each year in a public performance that combines biological education with musical presentation.

Dillon Hopson joined about 100 of his fellow second-graders at Deep Creek Elementary School yesterday for a trip outside the school to learn about trees. Then, a friend kicked a stump. A stump containing a nest of yellow jackets. "They were all surrounding me," the 8-year-old said of the swarm that emerged to sting him on both arms and the back of his head, and sting dozens of his schoolmates. It seemed like something out of a book, but, as he left the hospital, he said, "This is one page I don't want to have again."

A Fort Meade official said last night that methane and other gases emanating from a closed, 1940s-era trash dump pose no threat to students at nearby Manor View Elementary School. Contractors identified the gases after reviewing preliminary lab results of soil and vapor samples last Wednesday, according to a statement from Lt. Col. Rodney Gettig, director of public works at Fort Meade. The Army ruled out any risks after conducting additional tests Thursday and Friday, the statement said.

School, fire and police officials offered a dozen ways last night to make Walbrook High Uniform Services Academy a safer, less chaotic place, but an audience of parents, teachers and students hearing their plan at a town hall meeting demanded more. "It's good to see all of you here tonight, but what is going to happen when you leave?" asked parent Sylvia Fitzgerald, 34, who was among about 700 people who nearly filled the school auditorium. Baltimore schools CEO Bonnie S. Copeland - who came to the event to talk about safety - seemed shocked at an outpouring of discontent by Fitzgerald and many other parents.

Harford County school officials are still determining damage costs associated with an act of vandalism that occurred at Aberdeen High School on Oct. 15. An inventory of damaged items includes two television sets, six computers, one scanner, one laser printer, a window and several pieces of science equipment, including microscopes, according to a letter sent to parents last week by Principal Tom Szerensits. In the letter, Szerensits also said that the school's alarm system was not activated Oct. 15 because it was being repaired that day. Schools spokesman Donald R. Morrison said there had been sporadic problems with the alarm system.

After months of racist and anti-Semitic threats and vandalism at South River High School, Anne Arundel County police arrested this weekend four students they said had committed hate crimes at the school. They charged three 17-year- olds and one 18-year-old - Garth Lewis Swimm III of Davidsonville - with harassment, which the police labeled as a hate crime. The four also were charged with disrupting school activities and education. Police said they expect to make more arrests soon. Since December, neo-Nazi fliers have been posted inside the Edgewater school and on cars in the school parking lot, swastikas and Ku Klux Klan symbols have been spray-painted on school property, and threats have been written on walls inside the school, according to police, students and parents.

Baltimore County police are investigating a break-in during the weekend at Woodlawn Middle School, where intruders vandalized several rooms, stole property and apparently used drugs while in the building. Police had no estimate of the loss and damage but said the school will be open today. Entry was gained by breaking a window in a breezeway of the school, in the 3000 block of St. Luke's Lane, between 5 p.m. Saturday and 9 a.m. yesterday, when the burglary and damage were discovered by a county school system employee.

A 20-year-old Baltimore man pleaded guilty yesterday to shooting and killing a Lake Clifton-Eastern High School student on school grounds early this year and was sentenced to 40 years in prison. Gerald A. Lane of the 5100 block of Edmondson Ave. in West Baltimore pleaded guilty in Baltimore Circuit Court to second-degree murder and handgun crimes. An investigation found that Lane had had a dispute with Juan Matthews, 17, of the 5100 block of Conant Way. The two had grown up near each other.

YESTERDAY morning, with the radio reporting American bombing runs over Afghanistan, a third-grade teacher named Roz Echison glanced across the playground at Cross Country Elementary School in Northwest Baltimore and prepared to welcome her class in the midst of the thing she called "the crisis." "The crisis?" she was asked. "You mean the war?" "The war?" she said. "No, I mean the cafeteria crisis." On the first floor of the school, custodians were mopping the cafeteria floor. There was water all over the place.