Summer School

In addition to swimming with Michael Phelps ' instructors and battling with handmade robots, Baltimore summer school students will be building soapbox cars to help keep their minds revving until the next school year. In a program that began Tuesday, 2,000 middle school students will participate in what the district has themed a "Grand Prix" of summer learning in anticipation of the world-class auto racing event coming to the city in early September. It's the newest programming effort by the school system to join the nationwide campaign to combat summer learning loss and continue the district's emphasis on a summer science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM)

Until last summer, Baltimore City students probably didn't think that Michael Phelps and African step dancers would have much to do with their learning. But city school officials reported that middle-school students who used fractions to clock swimming lessons with the Olympic champion's coaches or calculated the proportion of rhythms by the performers showed significant progress in their ability to retain academic skills over the summer. The lessons were part of Baltimore's revamped 2010 summer-learning program, being hailed as a potential model for the country after it produced notable results that reversed a district trend of murky progress and low attendance.

Hundreds of Baltimore City summer school students converged at the Maryland State Fairgrounds on Thursday to have their mechanical alter egos compete in a series of games for the first-ever title of Baltimore City STEM Academy Champion. More than 100 teams of middle-school students — named "Robogirls," "Souldjabots" and even "Wall-E" — pitted robots that they had built over the course of six weeks this summer against one another in the culmination of the city schools' Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM)

Baltimore native and 14-time Olympic gold medalist Michael Phelps dove into a short lesson with city summer school students Wednesday on how to overcome fear of the water and to become successful and safe swimmers. Phelps joined about 40 excited students at the Polytechnic Institute pool to launch a partnership between the city schools' Summer Learning Academy and the Michael Phelps Swim School, which will offer 60 middle-school students up to 20 hours of swim lessons this summer, donated by its coaches.

Baltimore native and 14-time gold medal Olympian Michael Phelps is scheduled to make a splash with city summer school students Wednesday afternoon. Phelps will provide a swim lesson to students to kick off a partnership between the city schools' Summer Learning Academy and the Michael Phelps Swim School. The swim school will give 60 middle school students up to 20 hours of swim lessons donated by its coaches. The lesson and announcement will take place at the Polytechnic Institute.

Employers are offering financial incentives so workers will do the right things, and veteran mothers, who have been paying for everything from good grades to made beds for years, are, like, "Duh!" One program pays employees $10 to $100 a day to take their blood pressure medicine because the health care costs of not doing so can be so high. Another gives workers time to go to exercise classes and then cuts their share of health care premiums if they show up regularly. Another pays people to stop smoking.

Baltimore City school administrator Linda Eberhart envisions a scene straight from a high-tech, science-fiction film after students build robots as part of a new summer school math and science program. "It's all just going to come together," Eberhart said, as she described how about 2,000 students will gather in August to scrimmage the dozens of robots on a field in the city. "Students always ask, 'Why am I learning this?'" said Eberhart, the director of teaching and learning who is heading a host of summer school reforms in the city this year.

With the academic turnaround at Annapolis High School solidified, Superintendent Kevin M. Maxwell has adjusted staff scheduling to return the majority of the staff to a 200-day-a-year schedule. Under Maxwell's plan, which was agreed to by collective bargaining units and announced last week, department chairs in the four core academic subject areas, special education and ESOL will remain on the 12-month schedules. The school's testing, International Baccalaureate, Middle Years Program and signature program coordinators will also remain as 12-month employees.

The Ed Reed most often seen patrolling the deep middle of the Ravens' defense is renowned for improvisation, the ability to get inside an opposing quarterback's head and dedication to film study. But the Ed Reed who acquired a measure of celebrity as a high school athlete some 15 years ago in tiny St. Rose, La., had little confidence in the classroom, studied just enough to be eligible for sports and skipped school altogether when the mood struck. "He was a typical young boy," said Jeanne Hall, an academic adviser at Destrehan High School in nearby New Sarpy.

Teacher Scott Delpo never expected he would have to spend his summer break in the classroom. In fact, he had gone 17 years without having to work summer school. But this summer, Delpo, 39, says he was forced to get a job in large part because of the economy. "Honestly, I've been able to get by without having to work in the summer," said Delpo, who is a physical education teacher at Cradlerock School in Columbia during the school year. He's teaching math to rising second-graders this summer.