Sixth Grade

EMILY MAUNZ AND I taught English at Baltimore's Northeast Middle School Wednesday.Actually, Maunz taught sixth grade most of the day. That's her job. I filled in for her for 45 minutes. It was Teach For America Week, described in a TFA news release as "a nationwide event that calls upon successful Americans to share their knowledge and expertise with pupils in the classrooms of Teach For America corps members."Corps member Maunz, 23, wasn't born when I earned a living as an English teacher in New York in 1963.

Howard County pupils' scores on the Comprehensive Tests of Basic Skills remained fairly stable this year, and the county once again scored 23 percentile points above the national norm.Taken in the spring, the CTBS tests second-, fourth-, sixth- and ninth-graders in reading, language and math. Overall, Howard County scored in the 73rd percentile -- same as last year -- with the 50th percentile representing the national norm.While the big picture looks good, school officials are homing in on some trouble spots, such as a "notable" drop in math scores between grades four and six. There is also lingering concern about the the overall test scores of African-American and Hispanic pupils, which lag behind those of Asian and white pupils.

It's the first day of school -- kids are lost, schedules are confused and teachers are scrambling to deal with final details. About the last thing anyone expects or needs at this point is to see her boss walking through the front door.But there was schools Superintendent Carol S. Parham in the office at Van Bokkelen Elementary School yesterday on the first day of school, as about 600 excited students filed in."Well, I'm not shocked to see her," Principal Rose Tasker said, but she had no warning that hers would be one of five schools chosen for a first-day visit from the top administrator.

WALK ON THE wild side tonight with botanist David Pyle at the Manchester Parks Foundation Nature Center off Wilhelm Lane in Manchester.He'll lead you into nature's medicine cabinet, to seek medicinal plants that were treasured by people long ago.With today's emphasis on the pure and perfect prescription, plucking leaves or roots seems a risky route to overcoming illness. But many people enjoy learning about these medicinal plants while tramping through woods and fields.On the walk tonight, discussion of medical subjects and how to spot plants is geared toward adults.

If the reading test results from the Maryland School Performance Assessment Program were set to music, the eighth note would be sour.Third- and fifth-grade MSPAP scores continue a steady, if not spectacular, climb. But the program's annual report card released Tuesday shows barely a quarter of the state's eighth-graders read at a satisfactory level. And eighth-grade test scores have shown no growth since MSPAP began reporting school-by-school results six years ago."Eighth-grade reading scores are barely moving," said a disappointed Nancy S. Grasmick, state superintendent of schools.

"Eighth-grade reading scores are barely moving. We have a whole lot of work to do."Nancy S. Grasmick,state superintendent of schools, following the recent release of results on the state's annual Maryland School Performance Assessment Program tests."The character of the American middle school is as much to blame as anything else. We take kids from a small, intimate, friendly and controlled learning environment and propel them into a large, impersonal environment where the pupil-teacher ratio expands very quickly, where a teacher might have to deal with 200 kids in a day. Achievement starts to decline right away in the sixth grade, and by the 12th grade the gap has become a canyon."

These honor rolls arrived at The Sun's Anne Arundel County office too late to be included in Sunday's edition of The Sun in Anne Arundel.The following students were named to the "A" honor roll for the first marking period at Marley Middle School:SIXTH GRADE: Sean Arnaut, Dustin Carrigan, Monica Chih, Sherese A. Cobb, Nayely Gonzalez, Brittany L. Good, Amber C. Grimm, Erfem K. Keene, Robert H. Lange, Adam Long, Megan M. Luckeroth, Krista M. Ozarowski, Carolyn...

Woodbridge Elementary School will add a sixth grade next year, the Baltimore County school board decided last night, marking the first step in a broader push by parents to keep children in neighborhood schools through middle school.The action, which will keep about 60 sixth-graders a year at Woodbridge -- which now ends at grade five -- comes in response to a parent proposal to ease crowding at Southwest Academy and keep Woodbridge Valley children in their neighborhood through eighth grade.

St. Paul's Lutheran to open middle schoolSt. Paul's Lutheran School will open a middle school, beginning with sixth grade, in the coming school year and add a seventh grade in 1998-1999 and an eighth grade in 1999-2000.The school will offer a weekly computer class, Future Kids, for first- through sixth-graders. Before- and after-school care is available from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m.The church is at 308 Oak Manor Drive, Glen Burnie.Information: 410-766-5790.Pub Date: 8/08/97

Face constantly pressed up against a window, eyes always observing, pen frantically staining her beloved notebook, Harriet the 007 of the sixth grade, without the international intrigue and Scandinavian sirens."

The president has declined to talk about racism in connection with the carpet-chewers of the Right who are suffering road rage over his existence, and he's wise to turn that one down. The country doesn't need a sermon on race or civility right now. What it needs is to believe that our leaders are trying to do the right thing, no matter how inconvenient, and if they forge ahead and fix health insurance, then the ragemeisters of the Right will find other hobbies. Mr. Obama is a Chicago guy, and he doesn't wilt if some gin-crazed cracker from South Carolina calls him a liar, so don't trouble your pretty head about civility.

A sixth-grade girl at Perry Hall Middle School lied about being sexually assaulted this week in a school restroom, Baltimore County police said yesterday. Based on their investigation, police concluded that the incident did not occur, said Bill Toohey, a county police spokesman. Baltimore County State's Attorney Scott D. Shellenberger said that prosecutors have reviewed the facts of the case and decided not to charge the 11-year-old girl. "The [girl's] family acted extremely appropriately," Shellenberger said, "and we've decided that the situation is better handled in the family and not in the criminal justice system."

Fourth-graders at Gamber's Mechanicsville Elementary are the first group in the Carroll County school system to report a 100 percent pass rate on the reading and math tests of the Maryland School Assessment, according to results released from the State Department of Education. "Obviously, we're very, very proud of the staff and students," said the school's principal, Robin Townsend. "If one grade can do it, our hope is third and fifth can, also." Test scores rose at schools throughout the county, with slight decreases only in fifth-grade reading and third-grade math.

DEAR CAL -- My daughter is in the sixth grade. In our state, they allow sixth-grade students to try out for freshman teams. What are your feelings on sixth-grade students competing against older and more mature athletes(in our case, girls softball)? Steve Shelton, Owensboro, Ky. DEAR STEVE -- Every young athlete matures physically and emotionally at his or her own rate. There may be some sixth-graders (about 12 years old) who are physically strong enough to compete with freshmen (usually ninth-graders who are about 15 years old)

Two years ago, when she started sixth grade at Mayfield Woods Middle School, Katelyn Haarer noticed that the outside of the school was marred by graffiti. Katelyn was in the school's gifted-and-talented program, and had to do a research project. She and six other kids decided to focus on the vandalism, said Charla Phillips, the school's gifted-and-talented-research teacher. Last year, the group, led by Katelyn, persuaded school officials to place lighting along the back of the school to discourage vandals.

Three years into national education reforms that strive to close achievement gaps, the rate of academic progress among special-education pupils and English language learners continues to pose a challenge for Carroll County schools officials. In Carroll, one elementary school and two middle schools failed to make the mark this year, mainly because of weak performances in reading and math among special-education pupils on the Maryland State Assessments, according to preliminary data released last week.

Now that it's over, sixth grade really wasn't so bad. Everyone agrees that Ms. Turner's class rocked. It's hard enough for a teacher to hold pupils' attention during a regular day when they are 11 or 12, but she did it even yesterday, the last day of school. Ms. Turner pushes all the desks out of the way and puts all the chairs in a circle, except one, which is in the middle. Everyone takes turns sitting in the middle while everyone else says nice things about you. Things like, "If you're yelling at me at lunch and I say something, you always have a great comeback" and "You have the biggest binder that I've ever seen, yet you can pull papers out of it and you know where they are."

Two Holocaust survivors told their stories of courage to an enraptured group of about 40 sixth-graders and their parents at Folly Quarter Middle School in Ellicott City last week. The two women recounted their childhood memories - one of being hidden in convents and homes, and one of being sent to America to live with strangers - with a positive message of the goodness of those who helped them. They each sprinkled their tales with humor to help get their points across that, although there were horrors, it was not a completely dark period.

The first sixth-grade class since 1978 at George G. Kelson Elementary School was formally celebrated last week at an event marking the completion of the first phase of a community-based renovation project worth more than $500,000. In order for more children from the West Baltimore community of Sandtown-Winchester to attend middle school in their own neighborhood, officials from The Enterprise Foundation and Struever Bros., Eccles & Rouse paired to donate time, money and resources to Kelson to expand the school by three grades.

The Anne Arundel County school board heard its staff deliver a glowing report yesterday on the first-year success of the expanded sixth-grade reading program - then heard parents call it a load of hooey. School officials said the program, which gives sixth-graders two periods of language arts daily, has improved the test scores of all pupils - black and white, male and female, good readers and struggling readers - except for Hispanics. Sixth-grade Hispanic reading scores have declined for two years running, and system officials were at a loss to explain why. They said they would look into it. But otherwise, staffers praised the program.