New Students

In the aftermath of the shooting massacre at Virginia Tech in April, many colleges and universities are forcefully tackling issues of security and mental health during summer orientation seminars and greet-the-frosh gatherings with parents and new students before regular classes begin. Some are introducing new emergency notification systems or reinforcing procedures already in place. Many are more explicitly telling students how and when to seek mental health counseling for themselves and urging them to report a classmate who seems to need intervention, as the Virginia Tech gunmen desperately did before he killed 32 people and himself in the campus massacre.

A group of Howard County civic activists, business leaders and county officials were working early today to strengthen a 1992 law that tries to match development to the construction of roads and schools.Members of the Adequate Public Facilities Ordinance Committee began meeting at 7 p.m. yesterday in a fifth-floor conference room of the Columbia Gateway Building and spent hours debating several proposals to prevent crowding in Howard's elementary schools.The ordinance regulates growth by limiting the number of new houses according to the capacity of schools and roads.

NAACP one of sponsors of back-to-school ralliesThe Howard County branch of the National Association for The Advancement of Colored People will hold a series of five back-to-school rallies in cooperation with the Columbia Housing Corporation, the Council of Elders and the Black Student Achievement Program.The goal of the rallies is to improve school attendance and to promote good grades and self-discipline.The Council of Elders, television personalities, sports figures and others will offer words of encouragement to students.

THIRTY-EIGHT area teen-agers were extra sleepy Sunday. They had just returned from a weeklong trip to Leslie County, Ky., where they took part in Crofton Community United Methodist Church's annual Appalachian Service Project (ASP).After an 11-hour drive, they spent the week camping in a local elementary school, meeting with young people from Methodist churches in Pennsylvania and Alabama and working on a variety of projects.Cindy Dezio, a sophomore at the University of Maryland, reports that she worked hard.

Johns Hopkins University freshman Amanda Owens got an eye-opening education yesterday -- in the streets of North Baltimore.She was one of several college kids armed with brooms and trash bags, cleaning their way through various communities and playgrounds littered with weeds, broken glass and other signs of urban decay. It was the school's way of welcoming incoming freshmen to their new neighborhood.The cleanup extended into area streets, waterways and schools and involved about 900 first-year students, university officials said.

THE BEGINNING of the new school year is upon us, and it's time for orientation programs at schools in Southwest Carroll.Student/parent orientations are held to assist students who are transferring schools or who will be starting kindergarten this fall.On Thursday, Mount Airy Elementary will have orientation for kindergarten at 6 p.m. and for new students in grades one through five at 2 p.m. The programs will be held in the school cafeteria. Information: 301-829-1515.Winfield Elementary will hold orientation for kindergarten at 7 p.m. Wednesday and for new students in grades one through five at 10 a.m. Aug. 21. The programs will be held in the school cafeteria.

The state has approved a two-year pilot project allowing as many as 500 welfare recipients attending Baltimore City Community College to count their schooling as a "work activity" under welfare reform, a school official says.Under the project, which will be evaluated by the University of Maryland, Baltimore school of social work, students would not have to work 20 hours a week, as might otherwise be required under reform, said Harry Bosk, spokesman for the Maryland Department of Human Resources.

ELDERSBURG Elementary School is sporting some beautiful new designs. Inside the school, colorful graphics identify various sections and will help new students next school year.Led by parent volunteer Bob Urban, a group of teachers and parents spent part of the recent spring break painting the designs Urban had sketched for the hallways.Karen Maimone, Amy Meloche, Mary Jo Cornes, Carey Zylka, Laura Cline, Theresa French, Joanna Merrell, Cindy Knies, Joan Hoffman, Caterina Walsh, Kim Kelly, Cynthia Teesdale, Sharon Bowers, Michelle Bennett, Margaret Pfaff and Lisa Busher enjoyed a casual painting party as they worked on the designs.

IT HAD the makings of a fiasco. A bake sale was scheduled in conjunction with the Bollman Bridge Elementary Yard Sale last Saturday -- and the prime organizer, Trona Vollmerhausen, was indisposed.Organizing a bake sale doesn't sound as complex as, let's say, shipping car parts from California to Toronto via Japan. But it is.We're talking about volunteers who lead busy lives and have to be reminded that they committed themselves to provide three dozen cookies.Enter Patty Burton, who quickly organized the affair, including getting the goodies put out on time and arranging to sell soft drinks.

In April 1994, as he was leaving the presidency of Anne Arundel Community College, a post he'd held for 15 years, Thomas E. Florestano told his successor: "Here are the keys to a Cadillac. Don't screw it up."And it seems Martha A. Smith, the school's first woman president, has followed that advice."She's driving it very well," Florestano says of Smith. Since taking over the wheel, she has worked 10-hour days raising money for new buildings, making administrative hurdles less daunting to students, tailoring classes to be more relevant to the job market and preparing to teach a course in the fall.

If Columbia's proposed downtown redevelopment is completed, Howard County stands to gain an average of $6.9 million to $13.9 million in new net revenues each year, according to a detailed county government analysis of the financial impact presented to the County Council Monday night. But Jeff Bronow, the county's senior research planner, told council members his studies are intended more as a guide than as a concrete prediction. "This is not a budget predictor," he said. "It's a look at trends and analysis."

Recently, the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research released a report pointing out that at 19 percent, Coppin State University's retention and graduation rates rank among the lowest in the nation. Those numbers are based on a six-year cohort dating from 2000-2006. We acknowledge this. We understand our obligation to be good stewards of the public's investment in us and that we will be held accountable. Improving retention and graduation rates has been the No. 1 priority of my nearly 16-month tenure as president.

Harford Friends School planned to add first grade this academic year. School officials were looking for four to six students to make up the inaugural class but didn't meet their goal, said Jonathan Huxtable, head of the school. "Only two parents enrolled their children," said Huxtable, who started the school in 2005 in Darlington. "We kind of knew with the economy being so bad, it would be tough. We postponed the addition of first grade until next year." Despite the low turnout for first grade, the school's middle school program is bucking national trends with increased enrollment, Huxtable said.

Registration for new students and those entering public school kindergarten in August 2008 will be held in Howard County public elementary schools from 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. March 3-7 and at other times determined by individual schools. Kindergarten is mandatory in Maryland. State law requires that children entering kindergarten in the fall must be at least 5 years old on or before Sept. 1; children entering first grade must be 6 years old. Parents or legal guardians must register their children at the school serving the address where the child's parent or guardian resides.

In the aftermath of the shooting massacre at Virginia Tech in April, many colleges and universities are forcefully tackling issues of security and mental health during summer orientation seminars and greet-the-frosh gatherings with parents and new students before regular classes begin. Some are introducing new emergency notification systems or reinforcing procedures already in place. Many are more explicitly telling students how and when to seek mental health counseling for themselves and urging them to report a classmate who seems to need intervention, as the Virginia Tech gunmen desperately did before he killed 32 people and himself in the campus massacre.

Brandon Bettencourtt was supposed to be a freshman at Loyola University New Orleans. He was supposed to be taking business courses. He was supposed to have his own clothes. But yesterday, Bettencourtt was walking around the campus of Baltimore's Loyola College, on his way to a philosophy class, wearing a Magic Johnson basketball jersey that belongs to a friend. As he twirled a few strands of gray that run through his long black hair, Bettencourtt, 18, smiled ruefully. "Before Katrina, the gray was shorter," he said.

BATON ROUGE, La. - On the first day of classes since Hurricane Katrina, you couldn't tell the local students from the out-of-towners at Our Lady of Mercy School. They wore the same uniforms, took the same quizzes and ate the same lunches as everyone else. The teachers even knew their names. The school of 821 children added 200, mostly from the New Orleans area, virtually overnight. Uniforms, backpacks, notebooks - even socks and tennis shoes - were all donated and piled up on the stage in the gym. Class sizes bulged from 28 to 35, but no one was complaining.

New students moving into residence halls at McDaniel College and their families were given the royal treatment yesterday. As an army of volunteers descended on cars stuffed with college necessities and the comforts of home, students only had to step back and let the movers do all the heavy lifting. Parents, some of whom had driven hundreds of miles, were pleasantly surprised to find that they wouldn't have to lift another finger. With a steady stream of minivans and sport utility vehicles snaking their way through campus toward the two freshmen dormitories - Whiteford Hall for the women, Rouzer Hall for the men - the volunteers directed traffic, allowing a few vehicles at a time near the entrances.

New students moving into residence halls at McDaniel College and their families were given the royal treatment yesterday. As an army of volunteers descended on cars stuffed with college necessities and the comforts of home, students had only to step back and let the movers do the heavy lifting. Parents, some of whom had driven hundreds of miles, were pleasantly surprised to find that they would not have to lift another finger. With a steady stream of minivans and sport utility vehicles snaking their way through campus toward the two freshmen dormitories - Whiteford Hall for women, Rouzer Hall for men - the volunteers directed traffic, allowing a few vehicles at a time near the entrances.

New pupils streamed in throughout the school year, oftentimes arriving without anyone to sit with at lunch, talk to on the bus or show them the ropes at Mount Airy Elementary School. Concerned that too many children in the fast-growing area and crowded school were getting thrown into a new classroom without the same doting attention paid to newcomers at the beginning of the school year, guidance counselor Ann Horner decided to make welcoming midyear newcomers a little more hospitable. "I felt like we were getting to the point that new students were coming in so frequently that it was almost like, `Oh, here's another new student,' and they kind of got lost in the shuffle," she said.