Teachers And Principals

Obstruction and sabotage by RepublicansTwelve years of Presidents Reagan and Bush racked up a trillion dollar deficit, saw the gulf between rich and poor widen to Grand Canyon proportions and the middle class besieged to the point of desperation.Leveraged buyouts and corporate mergers put thousands out of work, while chief executives were bestowed obscene salaries and "golden parachutes."Cutbacks and blind neglect exacerbated the plight of the cities, soup kitchens sprouted, the homeless abounded and crime and drugs flourished.

Baltimore school officials are suspending fewer disruptive students to keep schools from being labeled "persistently dangerous" under the federal No Child Left Behind law, some city teachers and principals charge. "They don't want to suspend people," said Marietta English, president of the Baltimore Teachers Union. "But they have that backward. The children need to be disciplined. That's what makes the school safe." With 15 city schools placed on probation this summer and told they're one year away from the "dangerous" label - which would give parents at those schools the right to transfer their children to other schools - some principals and teachers say they're being pressured to avoid removing disruptive youngsters from school.

Ronald J. Valenti is an educator, a cook and an artist. He lays no claim to acrobatics.But as superintendent of 102 schools in the Archdiocese of Baltimore, he balances the desire for traditional Roman Catholic school curriculum and stability with the demand for sophisticated teaching and state-of-the-art technology.He does it with a staff of six administrators, handling the conflicting needs of a diverse system of 35,000 students and 2,800 teachers and principals spread across half of Maryland, from Frostburg to Bel Air to Annapolis.

Teachers and principals at eight Anne Arundel County schools that have struggled to reach goals on statewide tests could receive up to $1.2 million in bonuses this year -- half for committing to work at those schools, and more if their charges make the grade. The windfalls, approved in this year's school budget, make Anne Arundel part of a national push to offer money as a way to promote higher academic achievement. "It recognizes effort in schools that have had a history of low performance," said superintendent Eric J. Smith.

For a recent retiree, Hereford High School choral music teacher Gerald M. Smith spends a lot of time in the classroom, running his students through voice drills and teasing them when they miss a high note. Smith, who retired in May after 41 years at the chalkboard, is back in front of the class as part of a new program in Baltimore County that aims to retain master teachers and fill vacant posts amid a severe teacher shortage. Statewide, 537 retired educators - most of them with 25 or more years experience - are back on the job this fall, thanks in part to legislation passed by the General Assembly last year that loosened income restrictions for returning teachers.

"No big deal," the reporter said, just after the story of Anne Arundel County's biggest marijuana bust in history hit the wire.Journalists, like a lot of people, sometimes become desensitized to crime. An armed robbery at the corner grocery? Tell the editor to send someone else. A body in a West Baltimore alley? Make it a 5-inch "brief." Eight hundred pounds of pot? Who cares? A lot of people think the stuff ought to be legal, anyway.And yet, this was a big deal -- not because of the quantity of drugs (though 800 pounds of marijuana worth $1 million is nothing to take lightly)

Jennifer McBeth has been teaching at Oakland Mills High School since 1984, and she can count on one hand the number of parent-teacher conferences that have gone badly, she said. Those were the times that parents did not know their child was failing or opted to blame the teacher for a child's poor grades. Mostly, these 15-minute sessions are helpful to the teacher and the student, McBeth said. And she wishes more parents would take advantage of the format, especially the parents of struggling children.

If the busy life of a high school senior allowed it, Mara Comfort would take more naps."I find myself wanting more naps, I guess," said Mara, student government president at Francis Scott Key High School.Her school day has been 50 minutes longer since March 21, as Carroll County schools try to make up for seven days lost to bad weather this winter. The school board voted in March to extend the day instead of the year, which would have meant going to school seven more days in June.Friday, students in Carroll will resume their original schedules, after 42 school days of going in 20 minutes early and leaving 30 minutes late.

From rural Washington County to suburban Prince George's County, school systems around the state are beginning to wade into a promising but controversial topic in education: pay for performance. School officials are starting to offer teachers and principals extra pay or bonuses when they take on challenging assignments or raise test scores. So a Prince George's County teacher could earn a bonus of up to $10,000 a year, and a Baltimore principal might someday get an extra 10 percent for exemplary work.

Sister Mary Hubert, F.S.S.J., a native of Baltimore who was a teacher and principal at schools here and in many other cities, died Dec. 12 after a brief illness at the motherhouse of the Franciscan Sisters of St. Joseph in Hamburg, N.Y.Sister Hubert was 80. She retired two years ago as a fourth-grade teacher at the Father Kolbe Elementary School at Baltimore's St. Stanislaus Church. She had been principal of the old St. Stanislaus parish school.Since her retirement, she had been working part time in the treasurer's office of her order's motherhouse.