Jeffers Hill

Howard County school officials named an expert from outside the school system yesterday to test air quality in an east Columbia school whose students have complained of chronic health problems.School spokeswoman Patti Caplan said Joseph Coco of Aerosol Monitoring and Analysis Inc., a Hanover-based environmental consulting firm, will begin preliminary testing at Jeffers Hill Elementary School by the end of the week.Coco -- a certified industrial hygienist and vice president of the company -- will have test results available within 12 days, Caplan said.

PARENTS OF STUDENTS at Columbia's Jeffers Hill Elementary School ask a legitimate question: Is the 23-year-old building making their children sick?Students and staff have complained about headaches, fatigue, stomachaches, blurred vision and an inability to concentrate. Parents suspect that the building is responsible for the problems, although the evidence to date is far from conclusive.This creates a dilemma for parents such as Margie Wiedel, who has two children at the school. "I go back and forth between feeling like I'm being an overreactive parent to wondering, 'Am I doing my kids a disservice every day by letting them go in there and come home with headaches?

County officials say a series of "roundabouts," a modern version of the traffic circle, will force motorists to slow down near Jeffers Hill Elementary School."

For Gillian Engelbrecht, 11, a fifth-grader at Jeffers Hill Elementary School, one of the best parts about creating a mosaic for the school has been working on a team. Instead of working on one section from concept to completion, the students share responsibility. "They made us work on different things," she said, as she scraped grout between spaces on a near-completed section of the mosaic last week. Like other students involved in the project, Gillian came up with an idea for a section, but then worked to place bits of broken pottery, shells and other objects on a design created by someone else.

JEFFERS HILL Elementary School's PTA is co-sponsoring "Family Technology Night" at 7 p.m. today.Parents, students and teachers will have the opportunity to explore Microsoft Windows and the Internet, with hands-on computer time, during the evening.Joan Berger, northeast region coordinator/team leader for Microsoft, said, "We hope this workshop will help the parents and students realize the educational benefits of computers at school and home."Everyone attending will have an opportunity to win free software.

First-graders at Jeffers Hill Elementary School in Columbia couldn't take their eyes off Otto, the automated talking car, as it wheeled around the cafeteria talking about safety and cracking jokes. The little car, about 3 feet high with a wide smile on its radiator grille and red and blue lights painted on its roof, wheeled up to pupils to ask questions. The children looked right into its plastic eyes to answer. The remote-controlled car was giving a presentation with county Police Officer Brian Markley, who works with Mid-Atlantic AAA on safety programs.

Parents at two county schools are launching a letter-writing campaign to try to reverse a decision that transfers a principal and a teacher to other schools.The efforts follow angry reactions last week to school officials' announcement of a plan to reassign more than 60 teachers and administrators. Tempers flared at a school board meeting last Thursday as parents objected to the moves, and students staged a walkout at Mount Hebron High School, which will lose its top three administrators through reassignment.

The State Board of Education has ruled that the Howard County school district's most recent boundary-line revisions will stand unaffected this fall. Barry Budish, parent of a Waterloo Elementary pupil, appealed a decision in March to redistrict a Columbia neighborhood from one elementary school to two others in an effort to relieve crowding. Budish said the school district did not follow proper procedures when it decided to move 94 children from Waterloo to Jeffers Hill Elementary and 50 to Phelps Luck Elementary.

The State Board of Education has ruled that the Howard County school district's most recent boundary-line revisions will stand unaffected this fall. Barry Budish, parent of a Waterloo Elementary School pupil, had appealed a decision in March to redistrict a Columbia neighborhood from one elementary school to two others in an effort to relieve crowding. Budish said the district did not follow proper procedures when it decided to move 94 children from Waterloo to Jeffers Hill Elementary and 50 to Phelps Luck.

County engineers are studying the design of Tamar Drive, traffic volume and speed in response to parents' concerns that the road is unsafe for children to cross unassisted near Jeffers Hill Elementary School.The county Traffic Engineering Division expects to complete its evaluation of Tamar Drive and recommend changes that could help slow traffic, said C. Edward Walter, division chief.The traffic division must make a recommendation to the county Police Department before an additional crossing guard could be hired.