School Year

There's excitement in the air for students, parents and educators as schools across Maryland open their doors for a new school year. Students enter new classrooms, parents learn about new expectations for their children, and educators begin another year with a renewed focus on continued academic improvement. There is an extra layer of excitement this year as new teacher and principal evaluation systems are piloted in each of the state's 24 school systems. The purpose of these systems is to strengthen the knowledge, skills and classroom practices of educators to improve the achievement of our students.

Meet the parents. Bonnie Gladden, the mother of the 15-year-old charged with shooting a fellow student at Perry Hall High on the first day of the new school year, has a ninth-grade education and was 19 years old and four months pregnant with a daughter when she married Robert Wayne Gladden Sr. Four years later, in 1996, authorities filed charges of assault with intent to murder against him, listing Ms. Gladden as the victim, though he was acquitted...

As taken from the pages of The Aegis dated Thursday, August 30, 1962: Ground was broken for the first planned industrial park in Harford County. Fifty-two acres were designated by a group of private citizens for development into an industrial park in Forest Hill. There were 11 lots, ranging in size from 2.8 acres to 5.9 acres, available for sale or on a lease-back basis with option to buy. The first tenant to sign a lease for the property was the MarBelAir Co. of Memphis, manufacturers of precast Marbell terrazzo tile for flooring, walls, concrete blocks and stair treads.

We had never heard of Perry Hall High School guidance counselor Jesse Wasmer before this week. But if there is some sense to be made of the entirely senseless events of the first day of school at Baltimore County's largest high school, it is this: Mr. Wasmer is a hero. Students say it was Mr. Wasmer who subdued Robert Wayne Gladden Jr., the 15-year-old from Kingsville who allegedly took a disassembled shotgun and 21 rounds of ammunition to Perry Hall High on Monday. Police say the student's first shot, apparently fired randomly at lunchtime in the school cafeteria after he reassembled the weapon in a nearby school bathroom and hid it under his T-shirt, struck fellow student Daniel Borowy, 17, in the back, seriously injuring him. The second hit the ceiling harmlessly as Mr. Wasmer and others kept him under wraps until police arrived.

The city school board reinstated a principal Monday night who had been fired by CEO Andrés Alonso over alleged cheating at her school. But the reinstatement of Abbottston Elementary School Principal Angela Faltz won't take effect until 2013, and she won't receive back pay. Board members also upheld Alonso's decision to dismiss Marcy Isaac, the assistant principal of Abbottston Elementary, who had been testing coordinator. "The decision made this evening was a travesty to the Baltimore Public School System," said Jimmy Gittings, president of the administrators union, which has been fighting the dismissals for more than a year.

Since opening its doors in 1952, Westowne Elementary School has seen plenty of first days. But while every first day of school is different, the one common theme for students, teachers, and staff at the school on Harlem Lane has been a feeling of excitement. Pat Vogel, who is beginning her 18th year as a teacher/administrator in the Baltimore County school system, felt the enthusiasm again when Westowne opened on Monday. "Parents are excited because it's their time to send their children back to us," said Vogel, Westowne's principal since 2006.

Here's fair warning for students: Monday isn't just the first day of school in Baltimore City and the surrounding five counties, it's the beginning of life with a whole new set of expectations from teachers. There's going to be a lot more writing, more researching and more emphasis on being able to argue a point, even in math and science classes. And math classes will likely go more in-depth and cover less material. For the first time in a decade, what gets taught in classrooms across the state is shifting under a new set of standards for reading and math adopted by 45 states and the District of Columbia.

When Tanya Green was tapped to turn around the once-beleaguered Calverton Middle School in 2008, she paid close attention to not only what the staff in her school had to say about their barriers, but how they said it -- or sometimes what they failed to say at all. She noticed if they referred to students as, "these kids," or "the children. " She noticed whether they took responsibility for their students' failures, or transferred it on someone else. She took note of whether a teacher was as concerned about whether their students had lunch as they were about their test scores.

It's the final week of summer vacation for many kids, including my boys. I've been trying to get them on schedule that at least resembles the East Coast time zone, but it's been hard. I'd like for the tween to be in bed by 10 and the teen in bed by 11, but both are still staying up until midnight or later. Even worse, I fear, is that they have grown accustomed to sleeping until noon. A friend with boys almost the same age as mine has a different philosophy. She's been letting the boys sleep late as a final indulgence of the summer vacation.

The headmaster of the Calvert School in North Baltimore will depart at the end of the coming academic year for a new position at a school in Houston, school officials announced Wednesday. Andrew Martire has been headmaster of the Calvert School, located in the Tuscany-Canterbury neighborhood of Baltimore, since 2004. He has accepted the job of Head of School at the Kinkaid School in Houston starting next year. Both schools are private coeducational schools for students in kindergarten through eighth grade.