School Officials

Baltimore officials told a state legislative committee yesterday that the school system, whose financial troubles dominated the legislature's agenda last winter, was on the road to fiscal health. Although city school officials presented and defended a mostly rosy portrait of their operations to the House Appropriations Committee, legislators voiced concerns about underused city schools, which state officials have been pushing the city to close in order to reduce maintenance costs. Nevertheless, it was a calmer scene in Annapolis yesterday than this time last year, when Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. and legislative leaders worked to craft a financial package to bail the city school system out of a crippling $58 million budget deficit.

School officials praised an effort to protect teacher and classroom programs after the approval of the system's capital and operating budgets totaling $727.45 million. "This year finds us in fairly good shape," said board member Patricia Gordon. "This has been a tough year, but we've come through it as usual." Board member Larry Cohen added that the budget process "was real smooth." The $656.69 million operating budget includes money that will provide each teacher with a 1.2 percent cost-of-living increase, which will take effect in the coming school year.

Criticizing a proposal by Howard County Executive Charles I. Ecker to avoid building a new high school, education officials said last night that shifting grade levels down to make room for mushrooming high school enrollment would crowd elementary schools and cost about $36.5 million in new construction.Building additions to house more students at existing high schools, another of Ecker's proposals, would cost about $12.7 million compared with $29 million for a new high school, Maurice Kalin, associate superintendent of schools, told the school board last night.

The success of Baltimore's summer school seems to prove what common sense has told educators and parents for years: Children learn when they are in a small classroom with a good teacher who has lots of time to plan and expects high standards.In the words of school board president J. Tyson Tildon, "Hard work by people who understand and know the educational process pays off."The success also gives city and state school officials powerful evidence to support their proposals to create tough standards for students to pass from one grade to the next.

Baltimore school officials yesterday produced a hot water heater that mysteriously disappeared after an accident that severely burned a first-grader in June, admitting they have known its whereabouts for at least two weeks without alerting the state investigators who sought it.State regulators examined the heater at a Baltimore City schools workshop yesterday after receiving a tip that it was there. They say the equipment vanished from Hazelwood Elementary-Middle School in August after being labeled as evidence in an investigation of the burning of 7-year-old Ashley Moore.

Carroll County school officials yesterday cleared a bus driver of accusations by children that he drove their school bus across railroad tracks through flashing red warning lights Friday afternoon. But parents in New Windsor remained upset, because school officials, who acknowledge a train was in the area, didn't believe their children. There will be no further action involving the driver, 74-year-old Roland C. Strawsburg, who has an exemplary record in 30-plus years of driving, said James Doolan, the county schools supervisor of transportation.

As parents phoned school officials with worries about staph infections, Maryland lawmakers and health officials pledged renewed efforts yesterday to rid hospitals of drug-resistant bacteria that might be causing up to 19,000 deaths a year nationwide. Their actions came in the wake of a national study indicating that the incidence of invasive methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, known as MRSA, is twice as high as doctors previously estimated. State Sen. Lisa A. Gladden, a Baltimore Democrat, said she plans to reintroduce a bill requiring hospitals to test incoming patients at risk for the bug. Similar legislation has died twice in the face of opposition from the Maryland Hospital Association.

Concerned about drug use by teen-agers in east Columbia, parents and school officials have started an anti-substance abuse organization to educate children and parents and to seek solutions to the problem.The group -- the Eastern Coalition -- was formed in July and has 65 members. Initially, the members are targeting teen-agers at Oakland Mills High, Oakland Mills Middle and Owen Brown Middle schools, but as the group grows, it would like to include other schools in east Columbia.The group will hold its first countywide meeting at 7 p.m. Thursday at Oakland Mills High School on Kilimanjaro Road.

Ironically, stalled contract negotiations and the end of a healthy three-year contract may have helped prevent teacher layoffs this year.School officials expect they will be able to avoid a repeat of last year, when 10 teachers were laid off, thanks to the large number of retirees this year. The 102 school-system employees opting for retirement include 72 teachers, seven principals, six assistant principals, five guidance counselors, four instruction coordinators and three pupil-personnel workers.

More than 400 parents, teachers and students have signed a petition urging Howard County school officials to expel at least three students who are accused of severely beating another student -- shattering his jaw -- at Columbia's Long Reach High School.The Oct. 21 incident that began over a dropped quarter sent senior Kenny Magan, 17, into emergency surgery on his jaw, which was fractured in two places. He returned to school six days later with a permanent steel plate in his face and his mouth wired shut, but is now in good condition, he said yesterday.