Stay In School

It doesn't take much of a leap to predict that a student who is frequently suspended for short periods of time becomes a likely candidate to drop out. That's why school districts need to intervene more quickly and aggressively when a child acts out in ways that result in being excluded from class. The General Assembly is considering legislation that would set up a limited number of pilot programs. But more pilot programs are not the answer. School districts already have effective tools to help more students, even those who are disruptive, stay in school.

moviesA West Coast delight Steve Martin kids the Los Angeles lifestyle in ''L.A. Story,'' a film in which he plays a TV weatherman whose life is influenced by a traffic sign that helps him face the problems of everyday life. Victoria Tennant is the English journalist who falls in love with the weatherman. The film is gentle and also beautifully photographed. Marilu Henner plays the woman who is keeping company with the weatherman, and Sarah Jessica Parker is the one-girl aerobic class who can't seem to stand still.

Pitching isn't thereStop the bleeding. Shut off the artery. The cliche of reading the handwriting on the wall does not apply here. The handwriting is billboard size at Camden Yards. Don't think World Series. Don't think pennant. This pitching staff won't get us into the playoffs. Mr. Gillick, where are you? We're not just losing. We're getting thundered.Joseph LarsonTowsonJohnson's strategy faultyDavey Johnson, you blew it! I can't believe nobody else would say it. Not Buster Olney, not Peter Schmuck, not John Eisenberg, not John Steadman, not even Ken Rosenthal.

If Baltimore had a public boarding school for homeless teens, Iven Bailey might have been spared his nomadic existence. He might have even persuaded his best friend, Gary Sells, to join him there. Considering the rundown rowhouse in which Mr. Sells lived without mother or father, it wasn't long before he, too, was out on his own - all the while trying to stay in school and graduate. As The Sun's recent series "On Their Own," painfully documented, homeless students such as Mr. Sells and Mr. Bailey, who are trying to stay in school and fend for themselves, have very few options.

Nobody asked me, but ... I have no problem with speed cameras in school zones, or anywhere for that matter. It wouldn't be the first time technology augmented law enforcement. In fact, I'd like to see a few speed cameras installed on highway overpasses to catch people doing 85-and-up on the interstates. Speaking of driving and roads, have you done the new Route 30 bypass between upper Hampstead and lower Hampstead in Carroll County? It's kind of amazing - three traffic circles and six miles of pavement through picturesque farm country.

Bob Huggins has a big mouth. He admits it proudly. He speaks in absolutes. He is brash and, above all, he is always right.Just ask the city of Cincinnati.Three years ago, Huggins, a slightly manic, blow-dried, exquisitely dressed young coach from Akron, was hired to revive the University of Cincinnati's once-proud, then-humiliated basketball program. Huggins arrived on a campus that was fed up with players who had trouble with the law and academics and winning."I am," Huggins said the day he was hired, "going to take the University of Cincinnati to the Final Four.

IN THE SPIRIT of the season and of the day, Education Beat offers brief profiles of three Baltimoreans who give of themselves as volunteers in public schools.One of them can be described as a secular evangelist. The second is a longtime -- and we mean longtime -- volunteer. The third is a mentor and role model in the inner city. The three are soldiers in an army of people who believe unfashionably that you don't have to be paid to bring goodwill to humankind.Gail Cuffie calls herself the "coordinator" of a program called Aiming for Success.

The conference room of one of Maryland's largest law firms was bustling with activity: People milled around a bank of computers creating graphics with an animation program, researching data on library CD-ROMs, reviewing accident reconstruction videotapes.But these weren't attorneys preparing for a big case. They were elementary school students learning the ins and outs of the legal profession.The 40 fifth- and sixth-graders from Patapsco Elementary School are members of the Law Club, a program the Cherry Hill school designed with Piper & Marbury LLP to encourage students to stay in school, attend college and join the professional work force.

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. - Bob Leinart and I stood along the sideline Saturday at the Southern California Trojans' football practice, talking about kids, the college experience and decisions. "What would you do?" Leinart asked. Well, knowing what I know now about medical science, I would have had less coffee, eliminated all stress from my life, taken fewer hot showers and worn looser shorts, improving my chances of having a son who might one day grow up to earn millions playing football.

Bruce H. Williams was 13 when his mother died. Bereaved by her death and beset with the usual problems of adolescence, he was a prime candidate for trouble. Thanks to his caring family, two male teachers who wanted to see him succeed, and ambitious college classmates, Mr. Williams, a Washington native, says he was able to "make the right choices."He went on to earn bachelor's and master's degrees from Howard University and, eventually, landed a place in corporate America. Currently, he is business unit executive of IBM's Maryland sales force that handles accounts with new and small businesses.