School Population

Currently there is a set of facts about Carroll County Public Schools populations that are capable of two nearly opposite interpretations. If you compare the elementary school population with the preschool population in Carroll, you find that there are 1.27 students for every preschooler. That's the highest ratio in central Maryland, and the higher number of school children compared to pre-school children leads many leaders to assume that our elementary school population will continue to decline.

Currently there is a set of facts about Carroll County Public Schools populations that are capable of two nearly opposite interpretations. If you compare the elementary school population with the preschool population in Carroll, you find that there are 1.27 students for every preschooler. That's the highest ratio in central Maryland, and the higher number of school children compared to pre-school children leads many leaders to assume that our elementary school population will continue to decline.

Blacks continue to make up a higher proportion of the students expelled from Anne Arundel County schools than they do in the overall school population, worrying educators and civil rights watchdogs.Of 534 students expelled during the 1997-1998 school year, 203, or 38 percent, were black. Yet only 18 percent of the school population is black. The expulsion figure represents a slight increase over the 1996-1997 school year, when it was 36.6 percent, but is slightly lower than that of the 1995-1996 school year, when the proportion was 38.7 percent.

The Baltimore County school board voted unanimously Tuesday night to approve S. Dallas Dance, a Houston school administrator, as the next superintendent of its 105,000-student system. During a brief news conference after the vote, Dance said he had had "frank and honest" meetings Tuesday with elected leaders, including legislators in Annapolis, the County Council and the county executive. Because the school board held a closed search, Tuesday was the first time Dance was in town and available to meet the public.

In response to the Sun article "Raise your schools' game, Obama urges governors," (Feb. 22), high performance standards for American students must begin with politicians, school administrators, parents and teachers sharing the same vision and sense of urgency for our country and students. Too often power struggles cloud the true mission of public education, a responsibility to educate all children who enter the public school doors. This includes an increasingly diverse public school population ("Diversity flourishing across region's schools," Feb. 22)

The Baltimore County school board voted unanimously Tuesday night to approve S. Dallas Dance, a Houston school administrator, as the next superintendent of its 105,000-student system. During a brief news conference after the vote, Dance said he had had "frank and honest" meetings Tuesday with elected leaders, including legislators in Annapolis, the County Council and the county executive. Because the school board held a closed search, Tuesday was the first time Dance was in town and available to meet the public.

This is a plea for reason on the part of the thousands of Anne Arundel County parents who are about to find themselves caught up in the always traumatic task of school redistricting.This week, the Anne Arundel Board of Education named a committee to recommend new school district boundaries for the entire county. The process may move up to 16,000 of 69,000 students -- one-fourth of the system's enrollment -- to different schools starting in September 1995. Some communities may even be split up, with youngsters going to different schools.

Harford County is missing children -- about 475 of them, mostly elementary school age.The school board had projected 1,300 new students would start school in the county in September. But only 825 new students showed up when county schools opened their doors a few weeks ago.The nearly 37 percent difference has some politicians saying, "I told you so."Councilman Robert Wagner, R-District E, said he has questioned the school board's projection figures all along."We need to stop and take a look at these numbers before we get too much further along with school construction," he said.

The Baltimore County Board of Appeals has approved construction of a southwestern county housing development that had been held up by an emergency law banning new homes near badly overcrowded elementary schools. It was the second such approval this month.The board reversed a decision by then-County Attorney Arnold Jablon prohibiting construction of the 12-home Westchester Woods development on 5.2 acres off Westchester Road near Oella Avenue in far southwestern Baltimore County.The board ruled that the county bureaucracy delayed the Westchester Woods development beyond the October 1990 deadline for projects to be under way to escape the new law's provisions.

ON THE LAST day of the year, nothing is more appropriate than planning for the coming year.Instead of just focusing on the next 365 days, Carroll County's public officials would do themselves and county residents a favor if they begin to plan for the next century and beyond.For too long, Carroll's public policy process has been focused on keeping up with yesterday.Few public office-holders have offered grand visions of the future, or established agendas to achieve those visions. Instead, the political ethos has been to focus on a limited list of short-term goals.

In response to the Sun article "Raise your schools' game, Obama urges governors," (Feb. 22), high performance standards for American students must begin with politicians, school administrators, parents and teachers sharing the same vision and sense of urgency for our country and students. Too often power struggles cloud the true mission of public education, a responsibility to educate all children who enter the public school doors. This includes an increasingly diverse public school population ("Diversity flourishing across region's schools," Feb. 22)

The faces of Maryland's public school children have quietly been changing over the past several years, and minorities - primarily Hispanics, Asians and African-Americans - now outnumber white students in the state. Maryland public school enrollment data show that 48 percent of the students in the state's 24 school systems are white. African-Americans represent 38 percent of the school population, Hispanics 8 percent and Asian-Americans most of the remaining 6 percent.

Carolyn S. "Cally" Cochran, a civic activist who embraced liberal causes and was an outspoken advocate of educating the public on population growth, died Thursday of complications from Alzheimer's disease at the Broadmead retirement community in Cockeysville, where she had been a founding board member. She was 89. Born Carolyn Sizer in Boston and raised in New Haven, Conn., she attended Bennington College and met her future husband, Alexander S.

News that the Southampton Middle School district will be opened for housing development next month has created a stir among school and county officials, as well as parents, who say they question the enrollment projections on which the move is based. The news is the latest in a 2-year-old debate in the county about school crowding and how enrollment is projected. Last year, the school system moved hundreds of pupils from Southampton Middle to Fallston, Bel Air and North Harford middle schools to decrease a pupil population that had swelled to more than 2,000, nearly 500 over capacity.

Propped on shopping carts at the supermarket, or playing in the nursery at the local gym, the toddlers of River Hill look so innocent. Few would suspect the truth: that the smiling tots swarming over Columbia's newest and toniest village are the agents of a broad upheaval in Howard County schools and development. County officials and developers say the legions of River Hill kids could create enough pressure to: * Slam the door on new homes in the county's rural west in 2003. * Force the county to pay for even more school construction at a time when tax revenues are expected to decline.

HOW TO accommodate growth and preserve the integrity of schools? Already, Howard County allows growth to exceed elementary school capacity by 20 percent. That figure is coming down, but it represents a major concession to growth. Still, no one wants to see a school -- elementary, middle or high -- overwhelmed by students who don't fit. But how to set limits that don't hurt someone: developers, kids or county coffers? Reluctance to add a middle school adequacy test has been based in part on the changing nature of school district lines.

Carroll should not build new schools until after eliminating alternatives, the planning commission advised the County Commissioners yesterday.The panel recommended that the county build only one new high school and one new middle school in the next six years, rather than the two high schools and two middle schools the school board says are needed to accommodate the county's growing school population.The recommendation, if followed, would save the county about $35 million.The planning panel is recommending fewer schools, Chairman Thomas G. Hiltz told the commissioners, because members are confident of only a "two- to three-year window" of school population projections.

Almost 800 more students in Howard County were suspended during the 1997-1998 school year than in the previous year, with the number of incidents increasing at every level except middle school, according to a report presented to the school board last night.The report said 2,624 students were suspended last year, compared with 1,857 during the 1996-1997 school year. There were 1,748 students suspended in 1995-96, the report said.The majority of the incidents continue to occur in the high schools and involve boys, the report said.

Blacks continue to make up a higher proportion of the students expelled from Anne Arundel County schools than they do in the overall school population, worrying educators and civil rights watchdogs.Of 534 students expelled during the 1997-1998 school year, 203, or 38 percent, were black. Yet only 18 percent of the school population is black. The expulsion figure represents a slight increase over the 1996-1997 school year, when it was 36.6 percent, but is slightly lower than that of the 1995-1996 school year, when the proportion was 38.7 percent.