Middle School Students

Bel Air Lions Club members Madeline Hartman, left, and Pat Hogan flank the Lions Club International Peace Poster banner at the United Nations in New York, as Lions and the UN celebrated the 25th year of working together on this project. Middle school students from around the world submit posters with their visual interpretation of peace. Lion Hartman runs the program for the Bel Air Lions.

It starts with a prompt from the ballroom dancing instructor, and the kids, arm in arm and elbows up, miraculously transform into elegant fox-trotters. The middle school students at Crossroads School are part of a program based on Mad Hot Ballroom, a documentary about dancing teams at New York City schools. The school in Fells Point takes kids from impoverished neighborhoods in East Baltimore and helps turn their academic performances around.

WASHINGTON -- Nearly 10 percent of sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders are smoking cigarettes, federal health officials reported yesterday after the first national survey of middle school students. "It's not surprising when you realize that over one-fourth of high school students smoke -- and they have to start sometime," said Michael P. Eriksen, director of the office on smoking and health at the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, which released the study. CDC for many years has surveyed the tobacco habits of high schoolers -- the studies are regarded as a reliable barometer of smoking patterns among the nation's teen-agers -- but this is the first time the agency has included a comprehensive look at middle school students, ages 11 to 14, along with the older teen-age group.

Lacey EdgeSchool: Oakland Mills High SchoolHometown: ColumbiaAge: 17Lacey serves as vice president of the school's Student Government Association and belongs to the National Honor Society. She is head of Peer Leaders of Oakland Mills, a group of students trained to counsel elementary and middle school students to say no to drugs and resist peer pressure. She has been part of that group for four years.Lacey runs long distance and is a shot-putter for the school's track team. Outside of school, she swims competitively.

EIGHTH-GRADE reading scores have remained flat statewide since Maryland started its standardized tests for elementary and middle school students. The problem is particularly noticeable in Anne Arundel County, where fifth-graders score ahead of their statewide counterparts on reading and writing, but eighth-graders score well below the stagnant state average. It doesn't take reams of scientific research to conclude that something is going terribly wrong between fifth and eighth grades.

For two years, Andrea Clark has been trying to open doors for students in Howard County middle schools.Andrea, a 17-year-old Hammond High School senior and legislative liaison for the Howard County Association of Student Councils, has worked hard to introduce middle-school students to leadership training and involvement in student government.Getting middle-school students excited about student government doesn't sound like a difficult task, but it is. Local middle schools do not have student government associations because the election of officers would violate the ban on competitive activity imposed by William J. Kerewsky, former director of middle schools.

FOR ABOUT 30 YEARS, nobody seemed to care that Anne Arundel County's public schools were cheating middle school students out of gym classes. It's amazing that so many superintendents have let that travesty happen for so long, including the current chief, Carol S. Parham. But a decision by the Maryland State Board of Education to impose a state physical education requirement for middle school students halfway through the school year would not create a solution. Instead, it would incite another travesty.

Hundreds of Baltimore's most violent middle school students would be placed in special programs run by the school system and private operators, starting as early as this September, under a plan given to the city school board last night.That proposal is part of a detailed plan for dealing with disruptive middle school students, who accounted for nearly 60 percent of all suspensions and more than 1,000 crimes in the 1990-91 school year.If approved by the board, the plan would separate up to 200 of the most violent students into the programs next year, offering them intensive counseling and other services.

AFTER DISMAL results among middle school students on annual state tests, Baltimore school officials have announced a promising reform effort. While the plan is still being refined, it targets sensible areas of need. Success, however, will depend on a concerted, coordinated effort and more resources from the state and city. On this year's annual state tests, fewer than 50 percent of Baltimore's sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders were considered proficient in English, and fewer than 20 percent were proficient in math.

A construction crew ruptured a 4-inch gas line serving Edgewood High and Middle schools, forcing the evacuation of nearly 2,000 students and faculty for about two hours yesterday, authorities said.Soon after Harford County Emergency Operation Center officials gave permission for students to return to their classes at 1:20 p.m., 15 middle school students were rushed to area hospitals with nausea and breathing problems, said Don Morrison, spokesman for the school system.Earlier, one high school student who has asthma was taken to Harford Memorial Hospital as a precaution, a school official said.