School Officials

What started for Robert McCollum as a two-year leave of absence from a teaching job in Chicago has expanded into a five-year stint guiding 300 students in a Christian school in Bogota, Colombia. That enrollment was about a tenth of what McCollum was accustomed to in Chicago, but that wasn't the biggest difference. McCollum, 44, said the work "really helped me to frame my own thinking about what Christian education should look like. " After serving as secondary principal and director of academics at El Camino Academy in Bogota, McCollum has returned to the U.S. to serve as the upper school principal for Annapolis Area Christian School.

What started for Robert McCollum as a two-year leave of absence from a teaching job in Chicago has expanded into a five-year stint guiding 300 students in a Christian school in Bogota, Colombia. That enrollment was about a tenth of what McCollum was accustomed to in Chicago, but that wasn't the biggest difference. McCollum, 44, said the work "really helped me to frame my own thinking about what Christian education should look like. " After serving as secondary principal and director of academics at El Camino Academy in Bogota, McCollum has returned to the U.S. to serve as the upper school principal for Annapolis Area Christian School.

Baltimore's school-based health centers will continue to be funded by the city after the budget was passed last month restoring the imperiled program, a move that parents lauded even as the school system works to find money to pay for other student resources that were cut. All of the city's 13 health centers will remain open next school year, thanks in part to additional revenue that will come via new taxes. But school officials have not determined where they will find $6.2 million the city budget did not restore for half the city's crossing guards and free bus passes for students.

An attorney for the family of an Anne Arundel County 7-year-old suspended from school after being accused of nibbling a pastry into the shape of a gun says he met with school officials Wednesday in an attempt have the student's suspension expunged, but no resolution was reached. Park Elementary School student Josh Welch was suspended in March for two days after school officials accused him of shaping the pastry into the form of a gun and waving it around. School officials sent a letter home to parents saying the student had been removed from the classroom for making "inappropriate gestures that disrupted the class.

Parents at Brock Bridge Elementary organized a town meeting Tuesday to ask school system officials about an ongoing investigation involving child abuse and allegations that their new principal failed to report the suspected abuse.Problem was, the school officials didn't come.Robin Stapleton, who has twin boys at Brock Bridge, told about 80 parents attending the meeting in Maryland City that she had called a dozen school officials and Board of Education members asking them to attend the meeting.

A Baltimore County judge has decided there is enough reason to let a defamation suit against top Carroll County school officials move forward.The lawsuit, filed in April by James W. Ancel -- a Towson contractor who was hired to build Cranberry Station Elementary School in Westminster -- alleges Superintendent William H. Hyde, Assistant Superintendent Vernon F. Smith Jr. and school board attorney Louis J. Kozlakowski harmed his reputation by saying that...

Anne Arundel County school officials have added a briefing on four redistricting proposals to relieve crowding at George Fox Middle School and changed the date of a hearing.The second briefing -- one was to be held last night -- will be at 7 p.m. Thursday at Chesapeake Bay Middle School.The hearing, originally scheduled for March 27, will be at 7 p.m. March 28, also at Chesapeake Bay Middle School. The change was made to avoid conflict with school activities.George Fox is in the Northeast High School feeder system.

Howard County school officials are recommending a raise for substitute teachers, as well as the expansion of an incentive program for retired teachers.At a school board meeting last night, Kirk A. Thompson, a human resources specialist with the school system, proposed a $10-a-day increase for substitutes.That means a substitute teacher with a college degree would receive $75 a day, up from the current $65. A substitute without a degree would receive $65, and those with less than 60 hours of college credit would continue to be paid $55 daily.

A new building for New Windsor Middle School and a new roof for East Middle School were at the top of the priority list yesterday when Carroll school officials presented their capital budget projects.Lester P. Surber, supervisor of school facilities and planning, asked the county planning commission to recommend that the county pay $5.1 million toward the new school and $25,400 toward the new roof in fiscal year 1994, which begins next July 1.The total cost for building the new middle school is $7,983,800.

The governor has given his blessing this year, with money likely to follow next year, toward renovating and expanding Elmer Wolfe Elementary School.There's only one problem: The Carroll school board, in the meantime, decided to replace the school after the building committee and architect said renovation would be unworkable.It is possible the governor and state officials will sanction the new building as they had the renovation, said Vernon Smith, director of school support services.On Friday, school officials got the word that Gov. William Donald Schaefer would recommend that the other two members of the state Board of Public Works grant approval for Carroll County to start planning Elmer Wolfe's renovation, with the likelihood of $1.9 million for construction next year.

A Northwestern High School student was cut across his right thumb on Thursday after an altercation with another student outside the school. According to Baltimore City Public Schools, a male and female student were teasing each other off school grounds at the corner of Fallstaff Road and Park Heights Avenue. The teasing escalated, school system spokeswoman Edie House-Foster said, and the female cut the male student across his right thumb. Baltimore City Public Schools police took the girl to the state Juvenile Services department while the boy was taken to Sinai Hospital and treated for a superficial cut, House-Foster said.

Jeremy Mattoon, who guided Hood's men's lacrosse team for the past two seasons, will not be back for a third. Adrienne Mullikin, the college's sports information director, said Monday afternoon that Mattoon did not coach in the Blazers' regular-season finale against Widener on Saturday. The team's assistant coaches shared the head-coaching duties in a17-7 loss. Mattoon's name and bio are no longer on the team's website. Citing privacy laws, Mullikin declined to discuss the reason for Mattoon's departure.

City school officials said they will take extra security measures at a Southeast Baltimore charter school after five fires were set this week at the school, which also had an altercation that injured an administrator and a student arrest. Officials said they will increase the presence of school police officers and district staff at the Friendship Academy of Science and Technology Middle/High School, which they acknowledged has had "significant safety issues" this week. Among them were five trash-can fires - two Wednesday and three Thursday.

A federal lawsuit has been filed against the Harford County Public Schools and two school officials on behalf of a disabled student, who the suit claims was subjected to years of continuous bullying and threats from other students beginning when he was a student at Church Creek Elementary School and continuing when he was a student at Aberdeen Middle and High schools. The suit contends the school system not only failed to address the problem, but also failed to protect the student from the abuse.

An 18-year-old Baltimore resident was arrested at Old Mill High School in Millersville on Wednesday after a school resource officer stopped him and found three knives in a backpack he was carrying, according to Anne Arundel County Police and school officials. Norman Hardy of the 2100 block of N. Rosedale St. in the Walbrook neighborhood was first encountered in the school building by a student advocate about 8:50 a.m., school officials said. Hardy, who is not a student at the school, fled outside when asked why he was there, the officials said.

An Anne Arundel County police officer has been placed on administrative leave after an investigation indicated he placed a camera in a boys bathroom at Glen Burnie High School, police said Thursday. A student found what appeared to be a camera about 10:20 a.m. Wednesday and told an assistant principal about it around noon, saying he felt uncomfortable using the restroom, officials said. The camera was turned over to police, who said their investigation revealed that a 14-year veteran of the department, most recently assigned to the Special Services Bureau, had installed the camera without police or school officials knowing.

Baltimore school officials gave the public its first look at a detailed budget yesterday, one that breaks a promise to reduce an anticipated $41 million carryover deficit next year. Spending in the plan may be adjusted again before the board gives its final approval next month, however, and at least one board member vowed that the deficit would be substantially reduced. "We will cut that deficit by half," said board member Sam Stringfield. "This is not our final budget." But when members of the board's finance committee and representatives of educational advocacy groups began criticizing cuts already made in the proposed budget, the system's chief executive officer, Carmen V. Russo, pointed out that much tougher choices lay ahead if they were to reduce the deficit.

Any other day, school officials would have been celebrating. Instead yesterday, they were preparing for a fight.The celebratory news was that the state Public Works Board had approved $6.6 million for Howard County to complete construction of a western high school and northeastern middle school, and pay for renovations to an Ellicott City elementary school.But school officials are upset about County Executive Charles I. Ecker's plan to amend his proposed capital budget and cut the school board request by perhaps as much as 10 percent.

If anyone was at risk in the case of the Anne Arundel County second-grader who nibbled a strawberry pastry into the shape of a gun, it wasn't his classmates eating breakfast at Park Elementary School, where authorities say he waved the confection around. No, it was 7-year-old Josh Welch himself, who ate all that fat and sugar under the guise of a school nutrition program. Unfortunately, Park officials didn't see it that way. A school assistant principal told Josh's father, William "B.J.

Maryland will soon be home to a new university — one in which students can train in acupuncture, Chinese herbs and other forms of integrative medicine. The Tai Sophia Institute, a Howard County holistic health training center, has received state accreditation and will be renamed the Maryland University of Integrative Health, school officials announced Monday. The school plans to nearly triple its student body, begin granting doctorates in acupuncture and other healing techniques, and bolster its reputation nationally and internationally, said its provost, Judith Broida.