New School

For the second time in about five years, Mays Chapel residents are fighting the Baltimore County school system's plans to build a school in their neighborhood on land that was purchased years ago for that purpose. Residents who spoke at a school board meeting on Tuesday night said a retirement community has grown up around the school system's land since it was purchased years ago and it is now used as recreation and parkland by many of the residents in surrounding retirement communities.

In reference to Laurie Taylor-Mitchell's letter to the editor ("Dance is too inexperienced," April 24), the people of Baltimore County have been blindsided by the opaque political behavior of school board president Lawrence E. Schmidt and his cronies. A superintendent who has little experience in the classroom and obviously no experience with aging infrastructure will only rubber stamp the board's political leanings. Mr. Schmidt's hidden agenda goes back to his ridiculous ruling on the destruction of green space in Mays Chapel Park for a new school and not considering looking at the other viable areas presented at board meetings.

Norbel School in Elkridge will officially close its doors for good Friday, but a group that includes former Norbel staff and parents are working to launch a similar school for students with learning differences, one that they hope will open in time for the new school year. It is a daunting task in a short time, and the group, which has held meetings since Norbel officials announced the school's closing, has not secured a facility. The group is working on gaining permission from the state to open a school and is also trying to secure nonprofit status.

Editor's note: Each week, InsideMdSports.com provides this blog with a Maryland recruiting feature that previously appeared as premium content on its site. Everywhere they go these days, Aaron Harrison and Andrew Harrison are a featured attraction. The twin brothers from Travis High in Richmond, Texas, ranked as the No. 1 shooting guard and No. 1 point guard in the Class of 2013, respectively, tend to draw big crowds of spectators and college coaches.

Shortly after Norbel School in Elkridge closed in June, citing financial difficulties, many of the school's teachers, faculty and parents banded together to come up with a new school that, like Norbel, would serve children with learning disabilities. They secured the property of the former Ascension School in Halethorpe and chose to rent the facility. They formed a board of trustees, a staff and faculty, many of whom have ties to the former school. Everything was being put in place to launch the new school before Labor Day, just like other schools in the state.

Elkridge will get a new elementary school for the 2013-2014 academic year now that the sellers of a 10.1-acre site on Ducketts Lane have settled a dispute in court. The Howard County school system was supposed to close the deal with Ducketts Ridge LLC in October, but a shareholder refused to release a lien to the sellers. The $2.64 million deal was put on hold, leaving the school system without property needed to alleviate overcrowding in the northeast and causing the system to file a lawsuit in December.

Last month more than 104,000 students returned to Baltimore County Public Schools. While those students came back to the 26th largest school system in the nation, a new school tucked away in Lutherville welcomed just nine students. The Auburn School, on the ground floor of the Towson Unitarian Universalist Church, enrolls children between first and seventh grades who are "strong students" but need help with social skills, communication, language and organization. Head of School Marjorie Hoffman, who has spent 42 years in both private and public systems, believes the school is needed.

ELDERSBURG -- Ninth-graders and students new to Liberty High will attend an orientation at 10 a.m. Friday.Students will tour the school at 11 a.m., with the program ending at noon.Parents are encouraged to attend.In other school news:* Kindergarten orientation at Friendship Valley Elementary will be at 6 p.m. tomorrow. Students in grades one through five will visit the school from 7 to 8 p.m. that evening.* School opens for students on Tuesday.* The Carroll County Board of Education will meet at 9 a.m. Sept.

County school officials broke ground yesterday for a new Solley Road Elementary School -- a project intended to replace an overcrowded school built in the 1930s.Money for the school was won last year in a bitter fight. The project was deleted from the county's budget in May, but restored in June.The 74,000-square-foot building, which is expected to cost $6.5 million, is scheduled to open its doors in September 1995. It has been designed to accommodate about 600 students for the Pasadena-Glen Burnie area.

Howard County's new elementary school in Fulton will be named, appropriately enough, Fulton Elementary School, the Howard school board decided last week.Fulton Elementary was the name recommended to the board by a committee of parents and school officials. The school is being built off Route 216 near Lime Kiln Road and Murphy Road.Fulton, one of Howard's smallest villages, developed in the 1800s as a crossroads community to provide services to area farmers. It is named for Charles C. Fulton, a former editor of The Sun, according to historical research presented by school officials.

Gov. Martin O'Malley made a rare appearance at the state school board meeting Tuesday to welcome the new state school superintendent, Lillian M. Lowery, and encourage the members to work harder on preparing principals and providing vocational training to students. The state board voted unanimously to hire Lowery, who is Delaware's secretary of education. She will begin July 1. Lowery attended the board meeting, sitting next to the interim state school superintendent, Bernard Sadusky, but did not participate in the discussion, which centered on several key issues, including the adjustment to new set of high school exams in the coming years.

Martha Gardner takes the maternal approach to teaching. She ushers in every new school year "with butterflies of anticipation" as she welcomes her newest students into her family. After 32 years in the classroom, that family has grown very large. "If you are part of my life, you are family," she says to those students about to join her in a yearlong adventure. "I am excited to see their faces on the first day. These smiling, uncertain people don't know it yet, but they have just met the newest member of their family — me. " Those sentiments helped earn Gardner recognition as the Anne Arundel County Teacher of the Year.

In a meeting with the editorial board of The Baltimore Sun , the next Baltimore County schools chief, S. Dallas Dance, said he supports the controversial decision to build a new school in Mays Chapel. The school, he said, is needed to relieve overcrowding.  He said he will never shy away from making unpopular decisions, but that no matter how difficult the decision "it does not give you the right not to listen to people. "   Dance will take over on July 1, but he plans to visit the county several times between now and then.

Perhaps the most overlooked aspect of Mychal Parker's development during his two-year stay at Maryland was one which fans couldn't see, much less appreciate. A “solid C+” student in high school, according to a 2010 Rivals.com article (subscription required) reviewing his senior season at The Miller School, Parker came to Gary Williams with obvious athletic gifts but less spectacular off-the-court assets. That changed for the better at Maryland, former Miller School coach Scott Willard said Monday.

In the crowded glass and steel lobby of the Houston school headquarters, Principal Susan Monaghan paused briefly to touch the shoulder of her boss, a man with far less experience in the education field and young enough to have been her student. "I am OK, right?" she asked, searching his face for reassurance. S. Dallas Dance told her everything would be fine. Dance had initiated an audit after she discovered money missing from her budget in a case that has been referred to authorities, ending her ordeal.

A recent column written in part by the president of the Johns Hopkins University urged lawmakers to back a massive school renovation and repair program in Baltimore City ("New schools, new city," March 20). But given past history, it's fair to ask whether the kind of public-private partnerships cited in the commentary will truly benefit the most needy residents of the East Baltimore communities adjacent to this powerful institution. The schools in East Baltimore lead the city in low educational performance.

Sparks Elementary School, destroyed by fire Sunday, was born again yesterday as its 300 youngsters went to class in their new, temporary home at Cockeysville Middle School.Despite throngs of well-wishers, a flurry of pink sharks and a librarian dressed like Little Red Riding Hood, the students' return was orderly -- a tribute to long hours of hard work by their teachers, school officials and the community."Are you ready, Ms. Davidson?" Sparks Principal Thomas Ellis asked a first-grade teacher shortly after 9 a.m."

When the Howard County school board votes on new school boundary lines at today's 7:30 p.m. meeting, Alistair Leslie, a parent, hopes the five members instead will consider his proposal to change the school system's five-year building plan.Armed with graphs and transparencies, and using the school system's own data, the Dorsey Hall father of two has come up with an alternative plan he says better meets the school system's high school enrollment needs, saves as much as $8 million in operating costs and defers up to $18 million in bond debt until 1997.

Baltimore has the potential to again be the state's greatest economic engine. Investments in education, in particular, have the power to convert a tsunami of need into a rising tide of productivity. And the Maryland General Assembly has the opportunity to leverage newly proposed legislative options to steer the course to a more prosperous future. House and Senate committees recently heard arguments for an innovative bond financing mechanism to jump-start much-needed repairs and upgrades in city schools.

Residents from the Mays Chapel area are expected to attend the Tuesday evening meeting of the Baltimore County Board of Education to oppose the plan to build a new elementary school at Mays Chapel Park. The agenda for the March 6 meeting, set to begin at 7 p.m. at the board headquarters, 6901 Charles St., Towson, includes an item for the board to grant its blessing for the use of the Mays Chapel tract. Staff of the school is recommending that the site be accepted, saying in agenda documents that, "Based on a preliminary assessment and subject to Maryland State Department of Education approval, the site at Mays Chapel is the most viable in relieving the overcrowding in the Lutherville area.