New Middle School

Three innovative middle schools run by private organizations are expected to make their debuts this fall for children in West and East Baltimore, giving parents more options than their large, sometimes failing, neighborhood schools. The city school board gave approval last night for its staff to begin writing contracts with the operators of the new schools. They would be run by three separate entities: the Living Classroom Foundation; a group of three former city teachers; and a Baltimore teacher trained by a nationally recognized middle school program.

The principal of a Catholic elementary and middle school in Nebraska has been appointed head of the Calvert School's new middle school, which is under construction in North Baltimore. Patrick J. Slattery, 29, principal of St. Matthew's School, a prekindergarten-through-eighth-grade coeducational school in Bellevue, a suburb of Omaha, will start his new job July 1, said Calvert School Headmaster Merrill S. Hall. "Slattery was a unanimous and enthusiastic choice," Hall said yesterday. "He has both the education and the experience, as well as the energy and enthusiasm."

The first clue about what 37 Anne Arundel County schoolteachers, parents, students and administrators are doing in closed meetings over the next month is the group's ambitious name - the Middle School Restructuring Committee. Not the Middle School Reading Committee. Not the Middle School Electives Committee. Over four daylong meetings, the group will reshape what middle school means in Anne Arundel County. Its recommendations could run the gamut from adding periods to the school day to making the day longer to adding time for electives.

The Carroll County Board of Education approved yesterday a school construction plan and budget that includes a new elementary school, a new middle school and additions on the three high schools in the fast-growing South Carroll and Mount Airy. The nearly $100 million, six-year plan also calls for equipment upgrades and expansion of career and technology programs. The addition of those priorities was a result of pleas from parents, teachers and school administrators at a public hearing last week on the construction plan, said Carroll interim School Superintendent Charles I. Ecker.

When Howard County schools open their doors to students this morning, they'll have to hold them open a little longer than usual. That's because about 1,200 more students than last year will be attending schools in the county - raising the number of children to 45,700. More doors will be open because the number of county schools increases from 66 to 67 this year. The newly renovated Ellicott Mills Middle School officially opens to pupils today. Teachers have been wandering through the shiny building on Route 103 since last week, breathing in the aroma of fresh paint and new carpeting.

A genteel group, the unlikeliest of public protesters, picketed the Calvert School in North Baltimore this week while parents lined up in their Volvos and sport utility vehicles to drop off and pick up their children. Most were older than age 60, people you might see at a museum, an antique show or a country bed-and-breakfast. In short, folks who were not used to worrying about the roof over their heads - until lately. They took to the streets to protest the school's plans to buy and raze their apartments at 4300 N. Charles St. for a new middle school and two athletic fields.

Tom Hill paced the hallways like a nervous father-to-be outside a hospital delivery room. But rather than awaiting the arrival of his firstborn, the 42-year-old principal of Shiloh Middle School in Hampstead was expecting the first pupils to walk through the doors of his brand-new school. "This is the day Shiloh becomes a school," he said yesterday morning, heading out the doors to greet the inaugural arrivals at the parent drop-off loop. "It's not a school until you have kids in it." By those standards, Shiloh Middle officially became a school yesterday as about 800 pupils streamed off buses, hopped out of cars and scurried across the parking lot for the first day of classes.

With plans to build Baltimore County's first new high school since the 1970s speedily progressing and a new elementary school under construction, residents of the New Town development in Owings Mills are pushing for a middle school - and they just might get it. "There is a communitywide feeling that there's a need for a middle school," said Del. Robert A. Zirkin, an Owings Mills Democrat who lives in the New Town area and supports plans to build a...

Guidance counselors, a new Marley Middle School and school building repairs were on the wish lists of parents, teachers and students at a hearing last night on Superintendent Carol S. Parham's proposed $549 million budget. The first opportunity for the public to tell the school board what it thinks of the proposed spending plan for next year drew approximately 200 people to the Glen Burnie High School auditorium. The proposed budget, which Parham presented to the board last month, seeks higher salaries for entry-level teachers and signing bonuses for teachers in hard-to-fill areas, such as math, science and special education.

NORTH CARROLL pupils won't walk through the doors of new Shiloh Middle School until August, but Principal George Thomas Hill is readying for the school's opening. "Philosophy puts together a school," Hill explained. "A lot of us will very shortly be putting together our philosophy, which is `do what's best for kids,' and all our decisions are made on the basis of that philosophy. "It's the driving factor for everyone in the building. I'm really excited to get the staff and everyone's input into working toward the same common goal in getting ready to do what's best for kids," he added.