Principal

Taking a team to the state basketball championship game, where you lose by five in double overtime with a player on the winning team having to score 25 points and pull down 28 rebounds, ought to earn a coach a measure of security. Yet, for Darnell Dantzler, Dunbar's new boys coach, there is no guarantee he will be back next year to lead the Poets. "Nothing has been settled yet. What I try to do is take it one game at a time," Dantzler said last week before the 1A semifinals. "My job is to try to keep the boat afloat and make sure what needs to be done [gets done]

WASHINGTON -- One lesson Rep. John Sarbanes learned in his seven years working with the Maryland State Department of Education, he says, is the value of a good principal. Now he wants to write that lesson into federal law. With Congress poised to debate the reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind Act, Sarbanes is trying to use the education law to provoke a national discussion about the role an experienced administrator can play in turning around a troubled school. The freshman Democrat from Baltimore County has succeeded in inserting language into the draft legislation now circulating that would make funds available for research into what makes a "highly qualified principal," and how such administrators can be used to best advantage - issues that were "very invisible" in the 2001 version of No Child Left Behind, in the words of state schools Superintendent Nancy S. Grasmick.

Craig Herbert Lundberg, a retired Anne Arundel County high school principal, died of emphysema Wednesday at his Odenton home. He was 71. Born in Duluth, Minn., he moved to Maryland in late 1940s. He received his bachelor's degree and a master's degree in education from the University of Maryland, College Park. He began teaching choral music at Arundel High School in 1957 and later went into administrative work at Brooklyn Park High School. In 1984 he retired from the county public school system after serving as vice principal and principal at Glen Burnie High School and principal of Northeast High School in Pasadena.

Covered in a white cloth, Scott Conroy sat inside a small television studio yesterday morning and clenched a bottled water as a nervous smile spread across his face. The buzzing sound of electric clippers hinted what was to happen next. "I don't like the sound of that," said Conroy, a 37-year-old second-year principal at Wilde Lake Middle School, as Todd Hrico inched the clippers closer to Conroy's moderate-length brown hair. Three weeks ago, Conroy promised to shave off his hair if at least 95 percent of the 501 students at his Columbia school showed up for the four days of Maryland School Assessment testing.

WASHINGTON -- They arrived in America from Japan about a year ago -- cards bearing big-eyed little characters whose enigmatic powers fascinated children. But the trouble began when the little "pocket monsters" began coming to school -- stuffed in the pockets of cargo pants, encased lovingly in acrylic photo albums and stashed in Hello Kitty backpacks.Now Pokemon cards are being sent to the principal's office, banned from playgrounds even in schools where toys were not taboo. School officials from Connecticut to California have concluded that the cards are disrupting learning, poisoning playground friendships and causing such distraction that children forget their homework, tune out in class and miss school buses as they scramble to acquire one more card.

Trinita Henderson got fired from Baltimore's public schools while she was out on maternity leave. Stephanie Alston got the boot after her principal told her to stop wearing skirts that were too short.Kristine Woodson lost her job because she couldn't control a classroom in which pupils called her a curse word and erupted into fistfights. Tammy Haisley can't say for sure what happened to her, because she got fired without receiving an evaluation.City school officials said this week that these four and more than 250 other teachers will lose their jobs as part of an effort to make classroom instruction better.

Principal Jim Fish would rather be at home in bed sleeping the late night hours away. Instead, tonight he is patrolling the halls of his sprawling Montgomery County high school like a weary soldier. Some twisted soul in cyberspace is giving him no other choice.The 84 doors that lead into the school he pulls and jostles to make sure they are locked; the padlocks on the 1,400-plus lockers, he tugs again to make sure they have been fastened; endless darkened hallways are broken only by the white beam of his hand-held flashlight.

A SALESMAN who gets the sale is a good closer. And in baseball it's great to have a pitcher who is a good closer.But a good opener -- where do you need a good opener?Just ask Marion Payne, who has established a reputation as an opener of new schools. She opened two schools in Howard County -- one as a teacher and one as a principal -- and she will soon take on the job of opening four schools in Georgia.Payne, who has been principal at Mount View Middle School since it opened five years ago, is moving to Milledgeville, Ga., next month.

Baltimore schools chief Robert Booker will make all decisions about how the system handles employees with criminal pasts, rather than allow principals and low-level administrators to do so, school officials said yesterday.The announcement follows a report yesterday by The Sun that teacher Janyce Dyson -- who has a 20-year criminal history in three states -- was allowed to keep her job for nearly 15 months after the system learned about her crimes.After learning of Dyson's crimes, which included a 1996 conviction for defrauding a local Hecht's store of more than $20,000, Dyson's principal at Fort Worthington Elementary in East Baltimore decided no action against her was necessary.

Baltimore schools chief Robert Booker will make all decisions about how the system handles employees with criminal pasts, rather than allow principals and low-level administrators to do so, school officials said yesterday.The announcement follows a report yesterday by The Sun that teacher Janyce Dyson -- who has a 20-year criminal history in three states -- was allowed to keep her job for nearly 15 months after the system learned about her crimes.After learning of Dyson's crimes, which included a 1996 conviction for defrauding a local Hecht's store of more than $20,000, Dyson's principal at Fort Worthington Elementary in East Baltimore decided no action against her was necessary.

Ruth E. "Elaine" Kolakowski, a longtime Baltimore County educator and administrator who sewed quilts for hospitalized and abused children, died Thursday of facioscapulohumeral, or FSH, a rare form of muscular dystrophy, at St. Joseph Medical Center. She was 68. Ruth Elaine Lancaster, who was known by her middle name, was born in Baltimore and raised on Banbury Road in Anneslie. She was a 1958 graduate of Towson High School and that year received certificates in voice and piano from the Peabody Conservatory's Preparatory Department.

A Harford County teacher who was fired in June has filed a $2 million lawsuit against the principal of C. Milton Wright High School in Bel Air alleging negligence, interference with contract, emotional distress and defamation related to his dismissal. John Anker, 37, who joined the school faculty in November 2006, is suing Principal Marlene Molter because, he says, he was not given tenure after three years of probation during which he received many positive evaluations, several from her. The school system and its superintendent are not named in the lawsuit.

In the poor neighborhood around Coppin State University, a little school called Rosemont has put a moratorium on taking new students from outside its West Baltimore neighborhood because it has no more space. Six or seven years ago, the elementary school was considered a failure. In Waverly, where 15 years ago some residents moved out when their children got to school age, Abbottston Elementary Principal Angela Faltz is fielding phone calls from parents of students from private and county schools.

'Pie-ing the principal' teaches wrong lesson What am I missing here? I refer to the June 21 article in the Howard section of The Baltimore Sun titled "Pie-ing the principal a reward for behavior." I fail to understand how throwing pies in the faces of the principal and other school administrators is "an opportunity." Food throwing has always baffled me as a very messy way to waste food. But I am totally bewildered to comprehend how "up to 20 lucky students in each grade level got an opportunity to throw whipped cream pies" was "an opportunity," "a reward," and "a perfect way to end the school year."

A Queen Anne's County private school principal was arrested Monday and charged with three counts of sexual conduct involving a 14-year-old girl, state police said. Lowell S. Litton Jr., 39, of Sudlersville was charged with a third-degree sex offense, a fourth-degree sex offense and sex abuse of a minor, police said. If convicted, he faces up to 36 years of imprisonment. Police said the investigation began Sunday when officers at Centreville took a complaint of possible inappropriate sexual relations involving a juvenile.

The following is an entry from The Baltimore Sun's education blog, www.baltimoresun.com/insideed, and selected comments from readers, on the selection of Polytechnic Institute's Nicholas Greer as Baltimore Teacher of the year. The blog It's clear that Greer is an excellent teacher ("the best teacher I've had yet," said student Denzel Hamilton, 14). He teaches Ingenuity biology, honors bio, and Ingenuity science and computers. He also coaches Poly's boys soccer team, mentors a UMBC intern and chairs the School Family Council at Poly.

A 20-year-old Owings Mills resident who died in an accidental fall while hiking in an Ohio park was remembered yesterday as "an exceptional, big-hearted girl." Amy Adams, a Muskingum College junior and a biology major who planned to become a veterinarian, died Sunday after she fell the previous day in the Hosak's Cave section of Salt Fork State Park. Adams was a 2006 graduate of Mount de Sales Academy in Catonsville, where she was active in sports. The school's principal, Sister Elizabeth Anne Allen, described her as a "quiet catalyst who seemed to bring out the best in people."

The county's new charter school has hired the principal of Odenton Elementary School to serve as its first principal when it opens later this year. Monarch Academy Public Charter School has hired Maurine E. Larkin to be principal of the school that is scheduled to open on Aug. 24. The school will initially house 195 students in kindergarten, first and fifth grades. Larkin, who according to Monarch has more than 20 years of educational experience, said she was "thrilled" to be taking on the job, in a statement announcing her new position.

WASHINGTON - The Federal Reserve, in a move that could point the way toward breaking the logjam at the center of the credit crisis, has adopted a new strategy to permit some troubled borrowers to reduce the amount they owe and refinance into more manageable mortgages - an approach that is likely to set the stage for a broader Obama administration attack on the foreclosure crisis. The new policy, adopted by Fed governors without fanfare last week and provided to key lawmakers Tuesday, came as the central bank said yesterday that it would continue to hold its benchmark interest rate of zero to a quarter-point and pursue innovative ways to repair credit markets.

Here's a fact: Chante Bonner, 16, spoke out at a public forum on school safety and charged that the police officer assigned to Western High School sat at her desk instead of patrolling the halls. Here's the allegation: Her father called me on Friday and accused the school's principal of yanking Chante out of class the day after her comments appeared in my column and scolding her for making Western look bad. Here's the denial from Principal Eleanor P. Matthews: "I did not, and I'm not going to address it anymore."