School Begins

School year begin after Labor DayI applaud Harford County for waiting until after Labor Day to begin its public schools. I am disappointed that Howard and Carroll counties began theirs on Aug. 24. The hot, muggy, dog days of August are better suited for the beach than the classroom.Late August is a top time for family vacations. Work schedules often don't permit earlier vacations. The combination of rough surf caused by hurricanes coupled with over half the Ocean City lifeguards having left for school may lead to drownings.

Students at Mount Hebron High School in Ellicott City were dismissed at 10: 15 a.m. yesterday after timers -- which normally activate the air conditioning about 90 minutes before school begins -- failed.After the head custodian and two heating-and-air-conditioning specialists were unable to make repairs, school was dismissed because of the heat, said Assistant Principal Jack Bridner.The air conditioning was fixed and operating again by about 2 p.m., he said."It should be much better" today, Bridner said.

Q. My husband has a job opportunity that would require a two-year stay in Paris. We have two daughters, ages 9 and 4, and we're considering the move because it could be an exciting, educational opportunity for all of us.Our 4-year-old is flexible, but our 9-year-old is a sensitive, quiet, bright child who needs time to adjust to changes. She says she does not want to go.We feel that in the future she'll look back on the overseas experience as a wonderful memory. However, we don't want to traumatize her by taking this assignment.

They've already spent their last day at the pool. They've stayed up until the wee hours for the last night, slept until noon for the last morning.And yesterday, they went to their last baseball game.The kids in Camden Yards were, as you can imagine, excited and eager to return to the wonderful world of books and learning, teachers and report cards."Yuck," Daniel Levere, 10, says."Uck, headache," Adam Aronow, 8, says."I'm going to laugh and get straight Fs," Curtis Swauger, 8, promises.Perhaps the only happy student in the stands yesterday was George Balobalo, 8 ("and a half")

AS THE CITY population continues to decline, so does the number of students in its public schools. Superintendent Walter G. Amprey says last year's 113,000 students may decline by as many as 4,900 this year. Yet many classrooms will be at capacity when school begins next week, with up to 40 students per teacher at some high schools and 25 to 35 per teacher in the lower grades.The inability to reduce class sizes is testament both to the school system's poverty and to the unpopularity of gritty urban schools among today's teacher corps.

School is never closed for principals -- even during the summer. Just ask Robert J. Kemmery.Last week, the affable Eastern Technical High School principal cut short a trip to Pennsylvania when one of his teachers suddenly quit. By Wednesday, he was back at the Essex school setting up interviews for the physical education/health position.He's not alone. Throughout the metropolitan area, principals have been carrying on the work of their schools for the past two months while others have been basking in the sun or taking longer, sometimes exotic vacations.

The recruits who attend the U.S. Ordnance Center and School at Aberdeen Proving Ground are not part of the glamour of Army life, driving the tanks and flying the helicopters that star in recruitment videos.They are part of the support units that make sure the Army runs efficiently -- units that repair the small arms, the trucks and the generators used by the fighting force.They rise at 4 a.m. with a sharp wake-up call.When school begins, they either go to school or to a work detail that could include everything from raking leaves to typing memos and other paperwork.

One more week until school begins. Time for the last vacation Bible school of the season.Brooklyn United Methodist Church will sponsor Bible school from 6:30 until 8:30 p.m. today through Friday.Classes are available for children in kindergarten through high school. Come join in the fun and fellowship.To register or for more information, call 355-8740.*North County High School news: There will be a staggered opening to provide ninth-grade students with an orientation program. Ninth-graders only will report to school Aug. 28. All students will report to classes Aug. 29. Doors open at 7:10 a.m., with classes starting at 7:25 a.m.* There will be a PTSA executive board meeting at 6 p.m. tomorrow in the conference room.

The Linthicum Elementary School family would like to welcome several new staff members to the school for the 1995-96 school year.Dawn Datson, an teacher from High Point Elementary, will be the new special education teacher, replacing Will Robinson, who has taken a teaching position in Delaware.Debbie Martin will be joining us from Harmans Elementary to be the new second-grade teacher. She is taking the position left vacant by the retirement of Romaine Wilson.New part-time instructors are physical education teacher Debbie Shacklock and art teacher Susan Brisson.

The private Calvert School, whose collaboration with the city's Barclay School has surpassed the most optimistic expectations, is expanding to another public school in the fall.Calvert will take its detailed curriculum stressing mastery of the basics -- along with materials, support staff and training -- to Carter G. Woodson Elementary in Cherry Hill, Superintendent Walter G. Amprey said yesterday.Woodson eventually would serve as a training site for staffers who would become Calvert curriculum coordinators and take its program to other city public schools.

The lime-green shoots of tulips are beginning to push their way through a patch of rich dirt in front of Germantown Elementary School. Principal Walter Reap parks beside this garden every morning, and sometimes he considers the tulips' slow and perseverant reach for the sun and sky as a symbol of the gradual rebirth he is seeing at his school. Reap is in his first year as head of an Annapolis school that has grappled with drastic demographic shifts during the past decade. A school that once had nearly 600 students evenly split between white and African-American, saw its enrollment drop in 2001 to barely 400, with Hispanic students making up a third of enrollment, as white students dropped to 15 percent.

For the life of him, Danny Hunt, 13, couldn't figure out what was going wrong. All morning, he had done flips from a swing hanging 20 feet over a pool at the Beaver Dam Swimming Club, but as the day wore on, the eighth-grader's luck turned bad and his stomach was paying the price. "I'd been doing back flips easily, but now I can't do it," Danny said yesterday. "Now I've just been belly flopping." Undeterred, Danny, along with 11 of his closest friends from Rosa Parks Middle School in Olney, hit the swing again, keeping with their quest to make the final Friday of summer vacation the grandest day of them all. Nathan Craft, 13, said despite the hourlong car ride to get to the pool, "it's the best way to end the summer."

School year begin after Labor DayI applaud Harford County for waiting until after Labor Day to begin its public schools. I am disappointed that Howard and Carroll counties began theirs on Aug. 24. The hot, muggy, dog days of August are better suited for the beach than the classroom.Late August is a top time for family vacations. Work schedules often don't permit earlier vacations. The combination of rough surf caused by hurricanes coupled with over half the Ocean City lifeguards having left for school may lead to drownings.

Students at Mount Hebron High School in Ellicott City were dismissed at 10: 15 a.m. yesterday after timers -- which normally activate the air conditioning about 90 minutes before school begins -- failed.After the head custodian and two heating-and-air-conditioning specialists were unable to make repairs, school was dismissed because of the heat, said Assistant Principal Jack Bridner.The air conditioning was fixed and operating again by about 2 p.m., he said."It should be much better" today, Bridner said.

Q. My husband has a job opportunity that would require a two-year stay in Paris. We have two daughters, ages 9 and 4, and we're considering the move because it could be an exciting, educational opportunity for all of us.Our 4-year-old is flexible, but our 9-year-old is a sensitive, quiet, bright child who needs time to adjust to changes. She says she does not want to go.We feel that in the future she'll look back on the overseas experience as a wonderful memory. However, we don't want to traumatize her by taking this assignment.

They've already spent their last day at the pool. They've stayed up until the wee hours for the last night, slept until noon for the last morning.And yesterday, they went to their last baseball game.The kids in Camden Yards were, as you can imagine, excited and eager to return to the wonderful world of books and learning, teachers and report cards."Yuck," Daniel Levere, 10, says."Uck, headache," Adam Aronow, 8, says."I'm going to laugh and get straight Fs," Curtis Swauger, 8, promises.Perhaps the only happy student in the stands yesterday was George Balobalo, 8 ("and a half")

The recruits who attend the U.S. Ordnance Center and School at Aberdeen Proving Ground are not part of the glamour of Army life, driving the tanks and flying the helicopters that star in recruitment videos.They are part of the support units that make sure the Army runs efficiently -- units that repair the small arms, the trucks and the generators used by the fighting force.They rise at 4 a.m. with a sharp wake-up call.When school begins, they either go to school or to a work detail that could include everything from raking leaves to typing memos and other paperwork.

AS THE CITY population continues to decline, so does the number of students in its public schools. Superintendent Walter G. Amprey says last year's 113,000 students may decline by as many as 4,900 this year. Yet many classrooms will be at capacity when school begins next week, with up to 40 students per teacher at some high schools and 25 to 35 per teacher in the lower grades.The inability to reduce class sizes is testament both to the school system's poverty and to the unpopularity of gritty urban schools among today's teacher corps.

School is never closed for principals -- even during the summer. Just ask Robert J. Kemmery.Last week, the affable Eastern Technical High School principal cut short a trip to Pennsylvania when one of his teachers suddenly quit. By Wednesday, he was back at the Essex school setting up interviews for the physical education/health position.He's not alone. Throughout the metropolitan area, principals have been carrying on the work of their schools for the past two months while others have been basking in the sun or taking longer, sometimes exotic vacations.

One more week until school begins. Time for the last vacation Bible school of the season.Brooklyn United Methodist Church will sponsor Bible school from 6:30 until 8:30 p.m. today through Friday.Classes are available for children in kindergarten through high school. Come join in the fun and fellowship.To register or for more information, call 355-8740.*North County High School news: There will be a staggered opening to provide ninth-grade students with an orientation program. Ninth-graders only will report to school Aug. 28. All students will report to classes Aug. 29. Doors open at 7:10 a.m., with classes starting at 7:25 a.m.* There will be a PTSA executive board meeting at 6 p.m. tomorrow in the conference room.