Mount View Middle

A SALESMAN who gets the sale is a good closer. And in baseball it's great to have a pitcher who is a good closer.But a good opener -- where do you need a good opener?Just ask Marion Payne, who has established a reputation as an opener of new schools. She opened two schools in Howard County -- one as a teacher and one as a principal -- and she will soon take on the job of opening four schools in Georgia.Payne, who has been principal at Mount View Middle School since it opened five years ago, is moving to Milledgeville, Ga., next month.

No one at Mount View Middle School thought the band's scheduled trip to Hershey Park in Pennsylvania would be a big deal. After all, the group had gone for five years straight to compete in the "Music Festival In the Parks" event that draws school bands from across the region.But two weeks before the Marriottsville school's band was scheduled to go, it and other middle schools got some bad news: The Howard County school system would not sponsor the trip as it had in the past, leaving the band with no liability coverage.

NEW SHOES and clothes. New binders, notebooks and backpacks. New classrooms and locker combinations.All these lovely, shiny things signal the start of the school year.For some western Howard County schools, a new principal goes along with the rest.Manor Woods Elementary, Lisbon Elementary and Mount View Middle schools will be under new leadership this year. All will be led by longtime Howard County educators.Manor Woods Principal Jim Weisner has been in the Howard County public school system for 22 years.

IMAGINE A man in Arab headdress on a donkey on a road in Jordan -- cellular phone in hand.This, and other unexpected sights, were seen this summer by Marion Payne, intrepid traveler and principal of Mount View Middle School.She toured Israel and Jordan as part of the Fulbright Summer Seminars Abroad Program.Payne also traveled to Denver as president-elect of the National Middle School Principals Association.During the school year, she accompanied a group of Mount View students to Japan as part of an exchange program.

SCHOOL SCIENCE classes can be boring. Some students think they don't relate to real life.Do you agree? The sixth-graders at Mount View Middle School don't.They study the Blue Ice curriculum developed by Howard County resident Peter Wasilewski at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Goddard Space Flight Center.Wasilewski studies snow and ice in many places, including Antarctica and Japan. He goes on expeditions and works with schools around the world, coming up with ideas that teachers can develop into science lessons.

NETWEEKEND IS a statewide celebration by schools and parents who will join forces to work on understanding the Internet.Two local schools are sponsoring activities this weekend.Bushy Park Elementary School will hold an open house from 9 a.m. to noon Saturday.Parents and staff members will hear presentations, participate in workshops, and share brain-storming sessions.You can see Internet projects the school has created and plan where your child will go on the information superhighway.Learn to surf the 'Net in a hands-on workshop, to use electronic mail for communications between home and school and work on the Bushy Park Elementary School home page.

EARLY IN the school year, three sixth-grade students from Mount View Middle School -- Jeanette Curtis, Audre Leighton and Ashley Weedon -- expressed an interest in the tough issue of teen-age drug and cigarette abuse.Their interest became an independent research project. With the help of the American Heart Association and Glenn Schneider, a member of Smoke-Free Maryland, the students researched their topic.Because of their interest, the girls were invited to testify for Senate Bill 7675, which bans the sale of tobacco from vending machines.

HOSPITALITY IS Eileen Emrich's cup of tea.After two years as a PTA Hospitality Committee chairwoman at Manor Woods Elementary School and two more years in the volunteer job at Mount View Middle School, Emrich just keeps going.Emrich does more than make pasta salads, cookies and brownies. She organizes themed events for dances, basketball games, back-to-school nights, volunteer luncheons and more.She shops, prepares food, coordinates a committee of volunteers and produces -- according to the PTA -- many "flawless table settings," often relying on beautiful furnishings from her home.

LAST WEEK, County Executive Charles I. Ecker named Jennifer Melichar, a seventh-grader at Mount View Middle School, the 1996 Student Volunteer of the Year.Jennifer regularly volunteers at Pets On Wheels and Fidos for Freedom. Last year, she put at least 200 hours into the volunteer programs.Jennifer made an impromptu speech after accepting her award.Her dog, Angus, whom she is training as a Fidos for Freedom dog, accompanied her.River Hill homecomingRiver Hill High School holds its first homecoming this weekend.

BACK-TO-SCHOOL nights are in vogue this time of year. Glenelg High School's back-to-school night begins at 7 p.m. today.It's a perfect night to follow your child's schedule and hear about plans teachers have for the school year.Listen to Principal Jim McGregor and Assistant Principals Linda Wise and Lin Bartle outline overviews of the school, as Glenelg embraces a smaller student body this year.Information: 313-5528.Glenelg High School's club, Students Helping Other People, often goes by its acronym SHOP.

Howard County school system officials are considering four redistricting options that would eliminate an open enrollment practice and alleviate crowding in some schools, including in the western part of the county. The options for next school year were shared last week with the public during regional meetings at Centennial High and Hammond High. The meetings attracted close to 150 people, according to Joel Gallihue, the system's manager of school planning. The first option being considered would eliminate the open enrollment clause that allows students in the Greenbridge neighborhood to choose to attend either River Hill High or Glenelg High.

It didn't take long for Vincent Woodward to make his presence felt at Mount View Middle School in Marriottsville. Within months after his arrival as a sixth-grader, Vincent was elected school president. Nor did it matter to the rest of the students that Vincent, who would have entered eighth grade in the fall, had a form of dwarfism. Many who had grown up with him had long been won over by his indomitable spirit and magnetic personality. If they thought of him being different, it was because he was more mature, more grounded and generally more fun to be around than most of his peers.

Neighbors concerned about the proposed location of Howard County's 12th high school heard last night that its septic system likely will improve drinking water quality in surrounding Marriottsville. But it is what they did not hear at the waste management permit hearing that has them worried. Left unanswered were questions about how the sewage disposal plans for the school -- temporarily dubbed Northern -- will affect the area's wetlands, streams, ecosystem, watershed, bacteria levels and chemical contaminants.

IT'S STILL JANUARY, which in youth sports terms is eons away from another football season, but a new county football club that wants to begin play this fall is taking shape, claiming paid registrations from 150 players. The Western Howard County Wolfpack will become the fifth county youth football club, the others being the Columbia Bulldogs, the Howard County Trojans, the Columbia Community Church Warriors and the Howard County Bruins, a club for boys exceeding typical youth football age-weight limitations that began competing last fall.

A SITE in Marriottsville may or may not become the county's 12th high school around 2005. But either way, early machinations involving the acreage help illustrate the blinders school officials wear when it comes to recognizing the role of amateur sports groups here. Preliminary plans for what is referred to as a new north county high school show that education officials likely would claim yet three more playing fields that youth teams use now - with no apparent substitution or trade mentioned publicly.

Six Mount View Middle School pupils are members of a select group from Maryland and Virginia having an impact on their peers by sharing their views on a national program. The seventh- and eighth-graders traveled from their rural Marriottsville school to a television studio in Washington last week to tape "Mind Over Media: Voices From the Middle School," a program about media literacy scheduled to air in October. "It's a wonderful opportunity for the kids to be a part of a national program that focuses on middle school students and their needs, that will be viewed by every middle school in the country," said Lorraine Quinn, Gifted and Talented Program resource teacher.

In May, teachers from two distant schools turned a small encounter into a literary partnership that they hope will "peak" pupils' interests in reading for years to come. The Mountain to Mountain partnership is a new endeavor by pupils, reading teachers and media specialists at Mount View Middle School in Howard County and Mount Washington Elementary School in Baltimore. School-to-school partnerships are nothing new, but area reading specialists call the link between a suburban school and a city school for the purpose of increasing literacy refreshing.

NEW SHOES and clothes. New binders, notebooks and backpacks. New classrooms and locker combinations.All these lovely, shiny things signal the start of the school year.For some western Howard County schools, a new principal goes along with the rest.Manor Woods Elementary, Lisbon Elementary and Mount View Middle schools will be under new leadership this year. All will be led by longtime Howard County educators.Manor Woods Principal Jim Weisner has been in the Howard County public school system for 22 years.

A SALESMAN who gets the sale is a good closer. And in baseball it's great to have a pitcher who is a good closer.But a good opener -- where do you need a good opener?Just ask Marion Payne, who has established a reputation as an opener of new schools. She opened two schools in Howard County -- one as a teacher and one as a principal -- and she will soon take on the job of opening four schools in Georgia.Payne, who has been principal at Mount View Middle School since it opened five years ago, is moving to Milledgeville, Ga., next month.

No one at Mount View Middle School thought the band's scheduled trip to Hershey Park in Pennsylvania would be a big deal. After all, the group had gone for five years straight to compete in the "Music Festival In the Parks" event that draws school bands from across the region.But two weeks before the Marriottsville school's band was scheduled to go, it and other middle schools got some bad news: The Howard County school system would not sponsor the trip as it had in the past, leaving the band with no liability coverage.