Manor Woods

Lynda Mitic, assistant principal of Oakland Mills High School, was named principal of Centennial High School yesterday.Her appointment -- which was approved by the Howard County school board -- was one of five administrative changes announced yesterday by Howard schools Superintendent Michael E. Hickey.Mitic replaces Edgar Markley, who announced his retirement from the Howard school system this spring.Markley, who led the Ellicott City school three years, will become principal of Broad Run High School in Leesburg, Va.Mitic was a founder of the Eastern Coalition, a group created last fall to fight drug and alcohol abuse among teen-agers in the Oakland Mills area and in east Columbia.

HAPPY Thanksgiving! My family joins me in wishing you a wonderful holiday. My parents join us from Florida and my sister and her family join us from Virginia this Thanksgiving. We all have much to be thankful for.Help for needyFeathers for Food is the name the Manor Woods Elementary School Human Relations Committee gave to its once-a-year major service project, which netted more than $700 for Thanksgiving food.Students, staff, parents and the community contributed $1 for each feather they signed and placed on a huge likeness of a turkey at the school.

Happy New Year!I hereby proclaim the first day of school as the official New Year's Day for parents.The kids are in school again, so you know that they're safe. Little Jesse's not on that bike he fell off too many times; or on the skateboard he can't even stand on; or, worst of all, he's not "on hold," filling his brain with TV-movie-video game drivel.Now you'll start a new round of PTA, a new year of meeting with your kids' teachers and helping the children to meet the demands of school and enjoy school-based events.

Linda Feldmesser has been a teacher for 15 years -- and she's really nervous about Monday. She'll lose sleep the night before, she's sure, and fret about whether she'll fit in.Come Monday morning, Ms. Feldmesser will teach gifted students at Ellicott City's Manor Woods Elementary School, a new $8 million building for 500 students in an area burgeoning with growth.The school was built to relieve crowding at other area elementary schools. For example, it is expected to draw about 300 students who formerly attended Waverly Elementary and 65 from West Friendship Elementary.

Concerned about overcrowding at St. John's Lane Elementary School, 108 families of students attending the school have filed an appeal with the state superintendent of schools, calling for redistricting of their community.The Howard County Department of Education staff had recommended such a plan to the Board of Education, but the board rejected that proposal in March.The appeal, which would force the board to consider redistricting, is the latest twist in the debate between the school system and parents at the crowded elementary school, which serves students from the neighborhoods near St. Johns Lane in Ellicott City.

The families of 68 St. John's Lane Elementary School students who want to transfer their children out of the crowded school fear they may not be able to do so under a pupil assignment plan approved by the Board of Education Thursday.Parents in the St. John's community saw Manor Woods Elementary, which opens in the fall, as the school to which they could transfer their children. St. John's Lane is nearly 170 students above its official capacity of 663 and is expected to be 215 above capacity in the fall.

Howard County school board members are focusing on crowded Ellicott City and West Friendship elementary schools and enrollment growth at Hammond Middle School in this year's school redistricting battle.The board is less concerned this year than it was a year ago about enrollment problems at Centennial and Wilde Lake high schools, board Chairman Dana F. Hanna said."The perception last year was that the high school was the hot-button issue," he said. But galloping enrollment at St. John's Lane, Waverly and West Friendship elementaries has claimed this year's spotlight, he said.