Park Middle School

For three years, the National Committee for Citizens in Education worked to help 156 families whose children attended Harlem Park Middle School in West Baltimore. The program, "With and For Parents," was financed by the Prudential Foundation. In these excerpts from Network, the committee's newsletter, the director of "With and For Parents" reflects on the experience.Ms. ------ always apologized for her home when I visited. I was thinking as she did so that nothing wrong with her home was her fault.

After a year marked by heightened racial tensions and drug problems at Southern High School, two key administrators are leaving, school system officials announced yesterday. Principal Cliff Prince, who has been with county school system for 32 years, is scheduled to retire at the end of the month, and Assistant Principal Lee Watkins is being transferred to Severna Park High School as an assistant principal. Paul Vandenberg, principal of Lindale-Brooklyn Park Middle School, will replace Prince.

SEVERNA PARK HIGH School is preparing a show that has become something of a tradition -- its Rock 'n' Roll Revival XI, celebrating the music of the 1950s and 1960s. Tickets for the nostalgic blending of song and dance are on sale in the school lobby during lunch periods (about 10: 30 a.m., 11: 30 a.m. and 12: 30 p.m.), and from 6: 30 p.m. to 8 p.m. weekdays. Every March, for more than a decade, the school's students, alumni and teachers have wowed audiences with their version of what life was like in the "good old days."

It was just another inner-city school dropout prevention program, financed by an insurance company, Prudential, and administered by a Columbia-based organization with a do-gooder name, the National Committee for Citizens in Education (NCCE)."With and For Parents" operated for 3 1/2 years at Baltimore's Harlem Park Middle School. It received almost no publicity. And, if attendance rates and scores on achievement tests of the students in the program are compared with those of a control group, "With and For Parents" was at least a partial failure.

IT'S BEEN SAID that the more things change, the more they remain the same. A recent assignment given to sixth-grade pupils at Brooklyn Park Middle School has shown that to be true. The assignment was to write a 150-word essay comparing the Brooklyn Park of today to the Brooklyn Park of the 1930s. A few little-known facts were uncovered. Allison Ports discovered that in 1853, the land in Brooklyn Park was owned by the Patapsco Co. At that time, the Brooklyn community was in Anne Arundel County.

School NewsIt is a crying shame that a positive, upbeat school opening last week had to be marred by the media's grasping at the thinnest threads to create negative sensationalism.Ignoring the appropriate authorities, TV and newspapers chose to blow out of proportion an unsubstantiated report by an unstable 14-year-old that she was accosted in Patterson High School's lobby by a youth who supposedly had a gun tucked under his belt.The fact that the principal was supervising the scene at the time the alleged incident was supposed to have occurred was reported by only one TV station and then it was distorted.

DUMBFOUNDED IS the word I've heard most in the last week as north county residents tried to comprehend the news that the County Council has placed money for the renovation of Brooklyn Park Middle School in a contingency fund, rather than appropriate directly to the project.Members of the North County Coalition, fearful that the money might be used for something else, have drafted an open letter to County Executive John G. Gary to show support for the project and are asking residents to copy it, sign it and send it to him.The letter has the endorsement of two north county community associations, the Olde Brooklyn Park Improvement Association and the Linthicum Shipley Improvement Association.

IS BROOKLYN Park destined to become the educational hub of Anne Arundel County? First a new middle school opened. Next came the Chesapeake Arts Center and its offerings in art, drama, technical theater and just about everything else involving the arts. Then North County Recreation Center began holding classes in crafts and physical fitness. Last but not least, North County Senior Center has offered classes on subjects ranging from computer science to organic gardening. Anne Arundel Community College is the latest educational institution to cross over the Beltway.

The county school board will vote Wednesday whether to construct a new building or renovate the old area high school building for a proposed 725-student Brooklyn Park Middle School.The board will choose from five options, ranging from renovation of the former Brooklyn Park High School for $16.3 million to a complete overhaul of the building for $22.4 million. Building a new school would cost $20.6 million.The middle school is expected to open in fall 2000.The board also will decide among options for expanding Southern Middle School, at 5235 Solomon Island Road in Lothian.

Carroll's Planning Commission began deciding yesterday what capital budget projects the county should fund next fiscal year.Emergency radio system improvements, studies on a county police force and expansion of the Eldersburg branch library could fall by the wayside, officials said.Money for a new middle school in New Windsor, a new park in Sykesville and property acquisition for new schools probably will be allocated.The commission met for a work session to review recommendations from Planning Director Edmund R. Cueman, Chief of Building Construction Tom Rio and budget analyst Gary Horst about which projects should be funded in fiscal year 1994, which begins July 1.Last month, the commission heard requests from various county department heads and others for money for specific projects.