Milford Mill Academy

Three men have been charged with first-degree murder in last year's shooting death of a 16-year-old Milford Mill Academy student, police said yesterday. Sean Raynard Mosley, 19, of the 2500 block of Barnesley Place in Woodlawn, Michael Anthony Hawkins, 21, of the first block of Deveraux Court in Woodlawn and Devin Ross Handy, 21, of the 4700 block of Belle Forte Road in Randallstown were charged yesterday in the death of Renard Jawon Graves on April 11. Graves was preparing to graduate from high school - a year early - and was planning to join the Navy, his family said at the time of his death.

Bernice Gales could count on her son to be waiting at the Baltimore County Metro station after work each night to take her home. But when he was not there to greet her Oct. 19, 2011, she knew something was wrong. "He was never late," she said. She learned that night that her 21-year-old son, Ernest Bo Gales, had been found dead, shot multiple times, in his car parked at a Windsor Mill apartment complex. A year later, Baltimore County police continue to work to close the case but have not identified a suspect.

Waiting outside the auditorium at Baltimore County's Milford Mill Academy, Quaneeshia Minick shuffled around the hallway, expending her last bit of nervous energy.Minutes later on stage, Quaneeshia stood perfectly still, about an arm's length away from 14 other Junior Reserve Officers' Training Corps cadets, as three military judges graded her posture, her political knowledge and her all-black uniform."I was so nervous, my hands were sweating," the 16-year-old sophomore at Woodlawn High School said later.

A 16-year-old student was cut by an unknown suspect outside Milford Mill Academy on Monday, a Baltimore County police spokeswoman said. The teen suffered a cut to his leg just before noon behind the high school in the 3800 block of Washington Avenue, in northwest Baltimore County. "We believe it was an attempted robbery," police spokeswoman Detective Cathy Batton said. She said the incident remains under investigation and could not say whether another student was involved.

The students are bright and eager. The teachers, caring and hardworking. Even so, the Baltimore County school system's International Baccalaureate program - a tough academic regimen that prepares students for college - has shown uneven, and in some cases disappointing, results. Since 1997, when the first seniors graduated from the program, students at Kenwood High School have earned 44 baccalaureate diplomas. But only one diploma has been awarded at Milford Mill Academy, the other school that offers the program.

Baltimore County police were investigating yesterday the fatal shooting of a 16-year-old Milford Mill Academy student on North Rolling Road in Randallstown. On Sunday night, Renard Jawon Graves of the 8300 block of Mindale Circle had told his stepfather, Larry Walden, that he was going out - a common occurrence that Walden said usually meant Renard was walking to a neighbor's house. But just before midnight, neighbors knocked on Walden's door and told him Renard had been shot. "We don't have a clue what happened.

Baltimore County police are investigating the former principal of Milford Mill Academy and the school's finances after a school district audit -- fueling anxiety at the magnet school as a new academic year approaches.No permanent new principal has been appointed to the public high school. And at least two department chairmen have been stripped of their titles and claim unfair treatment and racism.Staff members say they are under a gag order. Rumors arerampant.Meanwhile, school system officials refuse to explain any of this, saying it is a confidential personnel matter.

Howard County police arrested a Baltimore man yesterday and charged him in the fatal shooting of his stepfather, a 56-year-old Marriottsville man who was a math teacher at Milford Mill Academy. Gordon Norman Overby, 25, of the 900 block of Cooks Lane is accused of shooting his step- father, Rodry Donald Webb, on Wednesday in Webb's home in the 1300 block of Driver Road, police said. Overby was charged with first-degree murder, second-degree murder, two counts of assault and use of a handgun while committing a felony.

An audit of Baltimore County's Milford Mill Academy has found evidence of the misuse of potentially thousands of dollars of school funds by the former principal, who is also the subject of a police investigation.Among the allegations are that a piano, purchased with school funds, ended up in Principal P. Delores Mbah's Columbia home. School money was used to finish her basement, a job that was done by a member of her staff and the husband of another staff member, the report says.In addition, one teacher at the magnet high school near Randallstown was paid for sponsoring a club she said she had never heard of, the report says.

A 16-year-old student was cut by an unknown suspect outside Milford Mill Academy on Monday, a Baltimore County police spokeswoman said. The teen suffered a cut to his leg just before noon behind the high school in the 3800 block of Washington Avenue, in northwest Baltimore County. "We believe it was an attempted robbery," police spokeswoman Detective Cathy Batton said. She said the incident remains under investigation and could not say whether another student was involved.

Locations, by school zone, of speed cameras in Baltimore County 1. Arbutus Middle School, 1200 block of Sulphur Spring Road (eastbound) 2. Catonsville High School, 400 block of South Rolling Road (both directions) 3. Dulaney High School, 200 block of Padonia Road (southbound) 4. Dundalk Middle School/Dundalk Elementary School, 7000 block of Dunmanway (westbound) 5. Eastern Technical High School, 1100 block of Mace Avenue (both directions) 6. Halstead Academy, 7500 block of Hillsway Road (southbound)

Holiday artwork by students from several local schools can be seen these days in store windows throughout downtown Towson. At the invitation of the Towson Chamber of Commerce, students from the schools created seasonal murals on display in storefronts on Pennsylvania and Chesapeake avenues: Local schools involved with the project included Stoneleigh Elementary School, Cockeysville and Dumbarton middle schools and the George Washington Carver...

Baltimore County Executive Kevin Kamenetz ticked off the wins from the legislative session Monday, but he warned that losses could be substantial next year. County officials and the local delegation went into the session with a nonpartisan, put-the-county-first philosophy, said Kamenetz, a Democrat and first-year county executive. He credited the strategy with his success in achieving his major legislative priorities — more state aid for schools and economic development. The county will receive more than $6 million for capital improvements at Hampton Elementary School and $2 million for economic development along Liberty Road.

First, we had the ongoing concern in Baltimore County Public Schools over the ethics of the Articulated Instruction Module grading system. Then, more recently, we have seen objection to the signage at Ruxton Ridge/West Towson Elementary School as being completely inappropriate to the historical character of the community. As if these two events weren't enough to blacken the eye of the BCPS administration, two more developments have arisen within the last week that make one wonder who is making what decisions, and with what accountability, on issues great and small at Greenwood.

The Baltimore County school system will have to spend as much as $7 million more than expected for an addition at one of its high schools, after allowing a construction firm to pull out of the project over a dispute with the architect, leaving only a concrete foundation and 2-foot-high walls behind. Contractor James W. Ancel asked to leave the $20 million project at Milford Mill Academy last year, claiming the architectural drawings supplied by the county were flawed. The school system decided to pay him $7.6 million for the work he performed and for equipment and materials he brought to the site, and then to seek another contractor, calling it the most expedient and sensible resolution.

Monique Imes was never one to shun the spotlight. That was true back in the day, when she was just a little girl growing up in Baltimore County. And it's even more true today, now that she's become famous as Mo'Nique, BET talk-show host and Oscar-nominated actress. "Oh yeah, I was maybe four, and I just liked to shake myself in front of everybody," Mo'Nique, 42, recalls with a laugh, just minutes before heading into an Atlanta television studio to tape an episode of her nightly talk show.

Baltimore County police have begun monitoring Milford Mill Academy at dismissal time, prompted by a series of fights among rival groups of teen-agers, including a shooting last week in a neighborhood off Liberty Road.A "handful" of police officers has been posted outside the Washington Avenue school, Sgt. Kevin Novak said. The shooting appears to be part of a continuing dispute among the groups, who recently had been fighting at dismissal time, he said."Kids from the different neighborhoods attend the school, and that becomes the common ground, so there's potential friction at the school.

After 26 years in education, Kathleen White is trying out a new role as matchmaker linking businesses and community organizations with schools in western Baltimore County. "I know that principals say that they can use extra hands and extra resources to help children succeed. ... There are schools that are not having the success they could be in the [northwest] area, which has one of the highest per-capita incomes in the state," said White, a community activist who lives in Randallstown.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed Monday four cases of swine flu in Maryland, including a student at Milford Mill Academy in Baltimore County and a preschooler from Anne Arundel County. They are the first Maryland cases to be confirmed by the federal agency since the state's department of health began detecting probable cases last Wednesday. Nine more specimens from the state are awaiting testing at the CDC's swine flu testing laboratory in Atlanta, where there is a backlog of cases.

David Ross, a popular foreign-language teacher who taught in city and county schools for more than two decades, died Saturday of a heart attack at his Northwest Baltimore home. He was 54. Mr. Ross was born in Baltimore and raised in Cherry Hill. He was a 1971 honors graduate of City College and earned a bachelor's degree in French with a minor in Spanish from Morgan State University in 1975. While a student at Morgan, Mr. Ross made the dean's list every semester of his college career.