Jessup Elementary

Track and field legend Wilma Rudolph has some pretty influential friends at Jessup Elementary.Thanks to the efforts of Irma Thompson's fourth-grade class, Rudolph will be included in the next edition ofthe World Book Encyclopedia -- more than three decades after she became the first American woman to win three gold medals in track and field during a single Olympics.To commemorate Women's History Month in March, Thompson had the 30 students in her class choose from a list of women who have overcomeobstacles in achieving success.

"The future is at our fingertips. . . . This is the age of computers," fifth-grade students sang in celebration of their entrance into the "information age."More than 100 elementary school students, school officials and business representatives gathered Wednesday night to celebrate the first "Celebration of Family Literacy" of the public schools' Family Literacy Program.The program, a joint effort of school officials, area businesses and residents, recently secured a donation of 20 portable notebook computers from San Jose, Cal.-based Librex Computer Systems Inc. Students from Jessup, Van Bokkelen and Overlook elementaries, all in the Severn area, will be allowed to take the computers home to complete their homework, help their reading and math skills, and send messages to their teachers.

Council Right to Reject Extra Media Center MoneyI applaud Anne Arundel County Council Chairwoman Diane Evans and the five other council members who voted 6-1 to reject the additional $500,000 for overruns to complete the media centers.It is crystal clear that the Board of Education's action was irresponsible, and it should be held accountable.As for board member John J. Klocko III's statement that the community shouldn't be held responsible, what kind of message do you send to the students and the community by rewarding irresponsible work?

The Children's Guild Institute will open an International Baccalaureate school in Laurel in Anne Arundel County, its third in the Baltimore area, the nonprofit organization said. The county school board is expected to vote on Superintendent Kevin Maxwell's recommended contract agreement for the school, slated to be called Monarch Global Academy Public Contract School, at its meeting Wednesday. The school, which would open in fall 2013, would also include a special international studies curriculum.

For five years, Jessup Elementary School parents sold pizzas and held spaghetti dinners to raise money for a school computer lab. For the last three months, they built the lab, hooking up hard drives and crafting desks out of kitchen counter tops.Yesterday, the work paid off as the first students flipped switches to log on, slid the mice and practiced typing on the 18 new computers. Their assignment was to type what they had written in their daily journals into the computer."I think [a computer]

A coalition of county and community leaders is scrambling to gather money for a West County center they say could turn lives around in the Meade Village and Pioneer City areas.The group cleared one hurdle Thursday morning, when the county Board of Education agreed to house the center at Van Bokkelen Elementary School, neutral ground in a troubled section of Reece Road.Tentatively called the West County Multiservices Center, the structure would house a variety of outreach programs.Coalition members envision services ranging from teaching child-rearing to literacy, from preschool to health programs.

When parents at Jessup Elementary School began organizing a volunteer effort to put up walls and partitions in their open space school, without the help of the Board of Education, the project seemed insurmountable.But parents and community businesses quickly volunteered time, skills and materials to start the project this summer. It was the mountain of school bureaucracy that stood in the way.Just a little more than a month away from what parents believed would be the beginning of the Jessup Works project, Board of Education members have raised questions that parents fear could delay the work, or even halt it.Board members had asked the superintendent's staff to determine what to do if the work was not completed on time and who would pay if something went wrong.

An ambitious effort by volunteers to renovate an elementary school in Jessup has encountered so many delays that construction may not start until next summer, parents were told last night.More than 100 frustrated parents came to a meeting of the Jessup Improvement Association to find out if the project, which could save the county school system a half-million dollars, will ever become a reality.After weeks of acrimony between the parents and Anne Arundel County school officials, both sides agreed last night that effort to put up walls closing off open classrooms of Jessup Elementary School must continue.

Red tape, an improved economy and lost momentum finally took their toll on the parent volunteers at Jessup Elementary School who thought they could enclose the open spaces that once were the educational rage faster and cheaper than school officials.The Anne Arundel County Board of Education has taken over the $100,000 project."We would have loved to have seen the volunteers pull this off, but everything worked against them," said Ralph Luther, director of operations and maintenance for county schools.

Del. John A. Giannetti was clinging to a slight lead last night in his bid to unseat longtime state Sen. Arthur Dorman in an election that had turned into a referendum on Dorman's age and health. With all but one precinct reporting - and results having see-sawed through the evening - Giannetti had slightly more than half of the vote in the Democratic primary for the 21st Legislative District. Just 191 votes separated the two candidates, 4,015 for Giannetti to 3,824 for Dorman. It appeared last night that the race would be decided by absentee ballots.