School Day

  As an administrator of Phillips Programs, I am most grateful to County Executive Ken Ulman, Police Chief William McMahon and the County Council for taking assertive steps to deter people from speeding past our Laurel school. Phillips is located on a busy stretch of Whiskey Bottom Road between routes 1 and 198. Three staff members have been rear-ended while attempting to turn into our driveway, bus drivers have complained about cars bearing down on them as they arrive with students and numerous near-misses have been observed during pick-up/drop-off times and throughout the school day. The county has been extremely responsive, posting an officer near the school and even re-lining the road to create a turning lane into our lot. Incredibly, people still swing dangerously around the turning vehicles, which include our buses, faculty, parents and visitors.

Glad to see a school in Columbia was encouraging children to be active with Bike to School Day ("Cradlerock gets rolling with Bike To School Day," May 20 ), but where in the world was that girl's bike helmet? A bike helmet is a necessary accessory to keep children safe! Alexandra Bessent, Towson

At Cradlerock School in Columbia, it was a day for reading, riding and arithmetic. Dozens of students, parents, teachers and staff took part in Bike to School Day on Friday, the same day communities across the country participated in Bike to Work Day. While other local cyclists gathered at venues such as the nearby The Mall in Columbia to celebrate a day of getting around without automobiles, many youngsters arrived at Cradlerock on BMX bikes,...

Like so many other articles in recent months, Nancy Grasmick's opinion piece that appeared in The Sun on March 14 emphasized the most recent buzz term in education, STEM ( "Maryland: The state of science" . Her statement, "Our nation has ignored science and math education for far too long," rang painfully true to me as a parent. When my daughter entered the Baltimore County school system as a kindergartner in 2006, at what was touted as one of the county's top schools, complete with excellent Maryland standardized test scores, I expected something more academically.

Let me begin by commending all of the excellent principals and teachers who work in Baltimore City Public Schools. I do not want this to come off as the type of educator bashing that we have been seeing lately; however, the article "Prayer service at city school called improper" (March 14) has shown one of the many deeply rooted issues with Baltimore City Public Schools and why they, as a whole, do not perform as well as other systems in the state: poor leadership. The fact that a principal (and many others who just haven't been caught)

A Baltimore charter school network that had threatened to shut down in June reached an agreement in principle with the Baltimore Teachers Union minutes before testimony was set to begin in Annapolis on a bill that would have given city charters more flexibility in dealing with union rules. KIPP, or the Knowledge is Power Program, will stay in Baltimore for the next decade under the agreement that gives the school the long-term stability to invest in its buildings as well as raise money for its schools.

One of the hottest debates in education today is whether charter schools do a better job serving poor and minority children than traditional public schools. That argument may be far from over nationally, but at least in the case of Baltimore's KIPP Ujima Village Academy, the question has been settled. Test scores of the school's 370 fifth- through eighth-graders consistently rank among the highest in the state, and 85 percent of the kids eventually go on to college. That's better than many top-performing suburban schools.

No pressure, lunchbox-packing parents. But if your little ones happen to go to school with Bella, Maya and Violet Smith, they might start turning up their noses at your meals. The Smith girls, ages 6 to 9, sit down to lunch at St. Francis of Assisi School in Northeast Baltimore with the likes of homemade sushi, made-from-scratch soup or a "grilled" cheese sandwich made with toasted sourdough and a triple-crème cheese that melts at room temperature. Not that the daughters of two chefs — their father, Scott, is co-owner of Big, Bad Wolf's House of Barbecue and their mother, Irene, is about to launch a locavore lunch truck called Souper Freak — know how good they've got it. "Half the time, they come home from school and say, 'Why can't we have Lunchables like the other kids?

Long before school reform became a national byword, the Baltimore School for the Arts, the city's only visual and performing arts public high school, was recognized as a model for excellence. Leslie Shepard, who will be stepping down in June after 10 years as the school's director, was one of the people most responsible for the BSA's sterling reputation, which she helped build over a 30-year career that saw the school become one the best of its type in the nation. Founded in 1979, the BSA was from the beginning different from any other city public school.

For the first time since it set up shop in the city 18 years ago, Teach for America is spreading into the suburbs, sending teachers into low-performing schools in Baltimore County that leaders say need as much help as those in the city. The move into four Baltimore County middle schools — Old Court, Deer Park, Windsor Mill and Golden Ring — will give the district 14 new TFA teachers to help decrease class sizes in reading and math. "We thought this would be a wonderful opportunity to begin providing additional resources in schools where students need assistance," said Donald A. Peccio, the county's assistant superintendent for human resources.