School Community

As Georgine Edgerton rode down Clifton Avenue in West Baltimore last week, she couldn't help reminiscing about how Walbrook Senior High first defined and then transformed the neighborhood she has called home for more than 30 years.It seems like just yesterday that the disparate Mount Holly, Windsor Hills, Fairmount Park and Woodhaven communities found themselves in an unlikely partnership supporting the school's creation, she says. From there, the alliance went on to help build affordable housing developments, condos and almost every community marker that stands in what is known as Greater Walbrook, including Cahill Recreation Center and Walbrook Junction shopping center.

As Georgine Edgerton rode down Clifton Avenue in West Baltimore last week, she couldn't help reminiscing about how Walbrook Senior High first defined and then transformed the neighborhood she has called home for more than 30 years.It seems like just yesterday that the disparate Mount Holly, Windsor Hills, Fairmount Park and Woodhaven communities found themselves in an unlikely partnership supporting the school's creation, she says. From there, the alliance went on to help build affordable housing developments, condos and almost every community marker that stands in what is known as Greater Walbrook, including Cahill Recreation Center and Walbrook Junction shopping center.

SWANSFIELD Elementary School's PTA president, Abby Futter, is a woman with a mission. She's organizing the school community to spread the word: Swansfield may be an older school, but it's a great school and a great community, she says.Futter says Swansfield's reputation and the reputation of the school conflict with reality."It's been driving me nuts for years," she says. "I think that people feel that just because it's not an affluent area, that it's not a good school. I don't believe that's true.

Despite the support of more than 1,000 people in the Winfield community, the Board of Education rejected yesterday an effort by Winfield Elementary School PTA to rename the school in honor of J. Raymond Mathias, its longtime principal, who was killed last month in a car accident."

THOUGH IT is hard to believe, Bollman Bridge Elementary celebrates its 10th anniversary this year.It seems like only yesterday this was the newest school in our area. Now there's Forest Ridge and the new Gorman Crossing in the southeastern corner of the county, joining Hammond and Laurel Woods. What a rate of growth!The PTA of Bollman Bridge plans to celebrate this anniversary with a family picnic Sept. 11. Families of current and former Bollman Bridge students are welcome to come see the changes in the school over the past decade.

Siding with parents from Charles Carroll Elementary School, the county Board of Education approved last night new boundary lines that will keep the rural school community intact.The five-member board unanimously rejected a recommendation by school facilities staff to transfer 66 Charles Carroll students to William Winchester Elementary School after parents made a strong case against the proposal."If this school is overcrowded, I've never seen a school handle overcrowding so well," said board member Ann Ballard, who introduced a motion to exclude Charles Carroll from the redistricting process.

Parents and students at Columbia's Wilde Lake High School came before the Howard school board last night to speak their minds -- at times loudly and angrily -- about the school's embattled principal.About half who spoke expressed support for Wilde Lake Principal Roger Plunkett, but others said that his actions have divided the school community."What is happening today at Wilde Lake High disturbs me greatly ," said Victoria Cofield-Aber, whose daughter is a senior at the school. "Today, I see a breakdown in trust.

WHAT WILL Glenelg High School be like next year and beyond? That is a question many of our neighbors ask as they look at redistricting issues and school populations.On Monday, at Glenelg, the Parent Teacher Student Association will sponsor a meeting for parents and students that will focus on what they wish Glenelg High School to be in the future.Redistricting is an opportunity for our community to take a good look at Glenelg, where it is, and where the school community wants it to go. The PTSA's Forum is a place where all who wish may speak up about curricula, activities, sports and more.

A community-built playground will not go on the grounds of Edgewater Elementary School, a victory for the organization behind the project and the school community that objected to the location.The school board sided with its staff yesterday in denying permission to put the project at the school.The South County Jaycees had a tentative agreement with the Anne Arundel County Department of Recreation and Parks to build the wooden playground at Edgewater Park, next to the school. Opponents wanted the $60,000 structure on school grounds and available to the public.

For years, they've called it "the Academy." One of Howard County's premier schools, it had an ambiance more private than public. Its teachers were dedicated, if not entrenched. And its parents were always vociferous in expressing their desires.Its real name is Dunloggin Middle School, and on the other side of the great divide between parents and school administrators, the reference to "the Academy" was often derisive.For officials on the receiving end of parental scorn and recalcitrance, the school earned its name by being snooty and inflexible.

A teacher has settled a discrimination lawsuit against a private school in Anne Arundel County that federal authorities said had fired him because he has the virus that causes AIDS. In the consent decree approved Wednesday by U.S. District Judge William D. Quarles Jr. in Baltimore, Chauncey Stevenson is to receive $79,750, but the Chesapeake Academy in Arnold did not admit wrongdoing. Among the actions it must take are steps to teach its supervisors about the Americans with Disabilities Act. The law requires employers to accommodate workers' disabilities.

Before she took over as principal of Atholton High School four years ago, Marcy Leonard knew Caryn Lasser's reputation as a hardworking, dedicated parent. Since that time, Lasser, a second-year PTSA president at the school, has exceeded that reputation. "She is the epitome of creating a parent organization that supports the mission of the school," Leonard said. Now others are recognizing Lasser's contributions as well. On April 16, Lasser received the Friends of Education Award, awarded annually by the county school board.

Sara Neufeld's recent three-part profile of Baltimore Schools CEO Andr?s Alonso uses the frame of a single charismatic personality to turn much-needed attention to urban school systems' ongoing struggles to meet the educational needs of their most underserved students ("Andr?s Alonso," Feb. 8- Feb. 10). Throughout the series, she returns to perhaps the central reason why city schools in Baltimore - and in so many other urban centers nationwide - continue to languish: the perception that, as Ms. Neufeld writes, "things are as they always will be."

A therapist who worked at Booker T. Washington Middle School in Baltimore was arrested in Catonsville and charged with molesting a 13-year-old boy, Baltimore County police said yesterday. Robert J. Stoever, 54, of the 1500 block of Park Ave. was arrested Sunday night after a county police officer saw him and the boy in a car in a parking lot at Edmondson Avenue and Academy Road, said Cpl. Michael Hill, a police spokesman. Stoever was charged with a second-degree sex offense and perverted practice, according to court documents.

Reacting to public outrage, a Southeast Baltimore car dealer renewed its offer yesterday to give $8,400 in college scholarships to four Patterson High School students, but the school's principal turned the money down. Principal Laura D'Anna said she received dozens of phone calls and e-mails yesterday from people willing to donate money for student college scholarships. She said she will be able to give the four students twice what Castle Toyota/Scion had initially promised them and give money to some of their classmates as well.

Holiday giving DSS Volunteer Office to begin toy collection A holiday toy drive for needy children will be launched Monday by the Volunteer Office of the Baltimore County Department of Social Services. Cromwell Valley Elementary School has adopted the project for its holiday charitable activity. Toy collections will continue through Dec. 21. Unwrapped new toys can be dropped off at several locations: all Bradford Bank branches in the county, Silhouettes in the Kenwood Shopping Center, Beverly Hochstedt Florist at 9502 Harford Road, or any Baltimore County Public Library branch.

Sandy Thrasher, a first-grade teacher at Bushy Park Elementary School in Glenwood since 1981, was getting her classroom ready for a new crop of students last week, just as she does every August before the start of the school year. But this year, setting up her classroom was more of a chore and also more of a pleasure. Like the rest of the Bushy Park community - teachers, students and staff members - Thrasher had moved to a new, much larger school just a parking lot away from the old Bushy Park Elementary School.

Carroll County pupils have already started getting into the giving spirit of the holidays. Food, clothes and toy drives are as big a part of the school day as math and history lessons. "The kids mostly bring food in directly off the bus to a box in the front hallway," said Ann Horner, Mount Airy Elementary School's guidance counselor who is spearheading the annual Mount Airy Jaycees food drive. "It's a school community [effort], and we all pitch in," Horner said. "[Mount Airy] is a very good and giving community and we like to keep encouraging that.

High school football can bond a community, and there was no doubt that the crowd of just under 1,000 at Annapolis High for the Panthers' opener last night was together after a week of turmoil at the school. "I didn't notice up in the stands too much, but we [the school community] really never got apart," said Annapolis coach Brian Brown, whose team was defeated, 41-7, by Gwynn Park of Prince George's County, the defending Class 3A state champion. "We never got apart." After the post-game handshakes, the teams huddled in the middle of the field for a prayer.

Include public in schools' plans How does Harford County Public Schools plan to spend the public's money? Some people think that's none of the public's business. The Harford County board of education is usually diligent when seeking public input on a variety of matters. Yet the board allowed the superintendent's senior staff to cut the public out of the planning process for the new Bel Air High School. The PTSA, community groups and the Bel Air town commissioners had all sought involvement on several occasions over the past 18 months.