New High School

A large and angry crowd of parents and officials from Hampstead and Manchester pushed last night for building a new high school after learning that funding for the $70 million project in northeastern Carroll County had been slashed from the county's proposed six-year capital spending plan. Residents have been pressuring Board of Education members for a new school to relieve overcrowding at North Carroll High School, but they learned yesterday that Ted Zaleski, the county budget director, recommended dropping the project.

You smell damp masonry as you approach the old factory atop the Jones Falls Valley just above downtown Baltimore. The restoration and conversion of the old Lebow Brothers garment manufacturing plant into a new $25 million Baltimore Design School is now five months in the making. Open to the elements since the mid-1980s, it still reeks of abandonment. But that changes by the day. It's a remarkable project in a lightly visited section of the Station North Arts and Entertainment District and the part of Baltimore known as Greenmount West.

The state Board of Public Works has approved switching the location of the county's next high school from Westminster to south central Carroll.The school, scheduled to open in 2001 for 1,200 students, will be built next to Linton Springs Elementary School, under construction off Liberty Road. It will ease crowding in South Carroll, particularly at Liberty High School.School board President C. Scott Stone said he was pleased with the quick turnaround. School officials sent a formal request to the board last month to switch the location.

Talk about rebuilding or replacing Havre de Grace High School got me to thinking. Talk about rebuilding or replacing Havre de Grace High School got me thinking. For more than a year, some noticeable changes have been taking place at the school. It started with the removal of what for generations had been the school's tennis courts tucked behind the gym at the corner of Adams and Bourbon streets. It's been a long time since they've been used for tennis. In recent years as they fell further and further into disrepair, they had been used primarily for baseball, lacrosse and softball teams seeking a dry spot during the cold, wet months of spring.

When the first freshman class enters Howard County's newest high school in September 1994 it will have a cluster of classrooms all its own.And the upper class students will no longer go to the math department's space or English department's classrooms. Instead, they will enter specially designed clusters where teachers from different disciplines will work together in presenting information.Daniel L. Jett, director of the county's high schools, outlined the new approach last week in a report to the county school board on how the design of the $24 million, 1,400-student high school planned for Clarksville will be unlike any other secondary school in the state.

Worst-case scenario: Soft-drink cans left everywhere. Passers-by harassed. Elevators broken. Jewelry snatched. Fire engines called for the fun of it. Fights spilled into the street blocking traffic. Yes, crowds of high school students have brought tension to some downtowns. It could happen in Baltimore. Opening a high school in the downtown business district could be the cause of great regret. But a downtown themed high school, which has been proposed for Baltimore, could provide life-changing opportunities for hundreds of students.

The Baltimore County school board wrestled last night with how to proceed in planning for a new high school to serve the northeastern area of the county. Board member Rodger C. Janssen said he wants to make building a new high school a priority. He expressed concern that the county is turning its high schools into "warehouses" by putting additions on existing buildings rather than building new ones. He opposed a 400-seat addition planned for Kenwood High School, one of the crowded campuses whose enrollment would be eased by a new school.

THE FINAL capital budget of Howard County Executive Charles I. Ecker doesn't include a new high school. The fiscally conservative Mr. Ecker believes the county can save $60 million in this way in construction and financing costs.But another cost that might be greater: The inadequate education that could result from jury-rigging the system to meet student projections.Today's enrollment of 40,000 students is estimated to grow by 8,000 within 11 years. Current construction of elementary and middle schools are precursors that more high-school classrooms will be needed down the road.

For Westminster parents, it's a bad case of deja vu.Last month, the Carroll County Planning and Zoning Commission recommended to the county commissioners that the opening of the new Westminster high school be delayed by two years.Westminster folks say the decision brings to mind the showdown in spring 1997, when the Westminster and South Carroll communities clashed over which should get a new high school first.School officials had long planned to open the new school in Westminster in 2001, but the South Carroll group argued that crowding in their area was more acute, and they would not settle for additions on the two existing high schools -- South Carroll and Liberty.

AMID THE indecision over whether to build a second high school for the Westminster area are three main concerns: too many empty seats in some schools; the $35 million cost and whether the state will pay its share; and a better location than the selected Cranberry Station site. The Carroll school board is ready to build the long-planned facility, to remedy overcrowding at Westminster High and correct the painful faults of that unmanageable mega-school. The board earmarked $2 million for preliminary work on the Cranberry site.

I usually try to be the type of person you don't go out of your way to avoid. (Here in Janet's World, we aim high with our interpersonal communication goals.) Most days I am successful in my attempts not to be offensive. As a result, I may even take it for granted that I am at ease in most social situations. But that was before last week, when I took a volunteer job that caused me to stand in the shoes of the undesirables. For two hours, I joined the ranks of the debt collectors, the tax auditors, the process servers — perhaps even the colonoscopy administrators.

An unlikely scene unfolds daily at City Neighbors High School in Baltimore: Students lounge in cheetah-print beanbag chairs reading books, stretch across stained-wood hutch-style desks as they work on assignments and wash dishes at a kitchen sink. The public charter school, which opened this year with an inaugural ninth-grade class of 90 students, has created a "home away from home" as part of its innovative learning environment. "The idea behind this is, 'How do we make it so that every kid who walks in those doors is known, loved and supported academically,' " said Bobbi Macdonald, the school's founder and self-described "relentless shopper" as she gave a tour of the building she feverishly decorated before doors opened to students this year.

For at least the past half-century, Polytechnic Institute, City College and Western High School have easily attracted the best minds in the city. But today, gifted students like Brian Eggleston see opportunities elsewhere. "I had good grades so I could have gone to Poly or City," the senior said. But he chose Digital Harbor High, which was developing a good reputation. "I heard about the technology [courses]," he said. Baltimore began upending the structure of its public high schools in 2002, and today's middle-schoolers can pick from nearly four dozen schools across the city rather than being assigned to a comprehensive high school in their neighborhood.

Kathy Lilley sees her academic counseling office at the Community College of Baltimore County as almost like the front desk in a hospital emergency room. A middle-age truck driver looking to become an apprentice electrician might be followed by a 20-year-old unsure how to translate academic skills into a paying career. No matter what the problem, Lilley's staff tries to find a solution within the college's catalog of courses and job-training programs. With the recession wiping out thousands of careers, their advice has never been more in demand.

Data do justify new high school The Sun's article "The next big thing: smaller schools" (June 22) notes that five Baltimore County high schools - including Towson, Hereford, Loch Raven, Perry Hall and Patapsco high schools - have an enrollment about 10 percent above the schools' state-rated capacity. The county executive's office contends that that is not enough to warrant building a new school. However, the Loch Raven High School Web site says the current enrollment is 1,201, 226 students (or more than 23 percent)

There's a lot of "disappointment," some of it "extreme," in the Baltimore County executive's office this week. County exec Jim Smith has allowed that he's also "confused" and finds the situation "frustrating." It's very discreet, even decorous language in the aftermath of a pitched battle that Smith lost - and one that could come back to haunt him in the future when the term-limited county executive makes what everyone expects will be a run for another office. But then, this has been an odd fight all along.

Howard County's new high school in East Columbia will not have enough land to accommodate all its athletic teams, forcing school officials to build additional practice fields at a nearby park.The softball and soccer teams at the still-unnamed high school likely will have to practice on school-owned land in the Locust Park area, said Don Disney, the school system's coordinator for athletics. The land is about three-quarters of a mile from the school site.The $25 million school -- on Dobbin Road northeast of Route 175 in Columbia's Long Reach village -- is scheduled to open in fall 1996 and will serve at least 1,400 students, relieving some of the crowding at county high schools.

For Westminster parents, it's a bad case of deja vu.Last month, the Carroll County Planning and Zoning Commission recommended to the county commissioners that the opening of the new Westminster high school be delayed by two years.Westminster folks say the decision brings to mind the showdown in spring 1997, when the Westminster and South Carroll communities clashed over which should get a new high school first.School officials had long planned to open the new school in Westminster in 2001, but the South Carroll group argued that crowding in their area was more acute, and they would not settle for additions on the two existing high schools -- South Carroll and Liberty.

Baltimore County has some of the best schools in Maryland. Newsweek recently recognized 10 county high schools as among the top 5 percent in the United States. Unfortunately, there are challenges on the horizon that undermine the strength of our schools and the vitality of our communities. School overcrowding is the most serious of these challenges. The debate over whether to build an addition at Loch Raven High School is the culmination of nearly a decade of frustration with the way Baltimore County plans and builds its schools.