Teachers

As Monarch Academy music teacher Kenzie Turk talked about the trials of living with Type 1 diabetes, her service dog, Bear, lay nearby, drifting in and out of a deep sleep. Dozing in class isn't usually acceptable at the public charter school in Glen Burnie, but the 8-month-old black Labrador retriever had endured a busy night, waking Turk more than two dozen times to alert her that complications from the chronic disease had flared again, prompting her to take action before something went tragically wrong.

A social studies teacher and assistant track coach has been replaced indefinitely amid an investigation by Anne Arundel County Public Schools. Kate Snyder, a teacher at Old Mill High School in Glen Burnie who also served as student government and senior class adviser, "has been reassigned by the school system and will be away from the school indefinitely," according to a letter sent home to parents on Friday from Principal James Todd. Todd wrote that a substitute teacher will fill in for Snyder's classes and the school will consult with the district's Office of Investigation and other school system administrators on whether a long-term replacement needs to be found.

Frances H. Mueller, a retired educator who had chaired the Bryn Mawr School's English department and also taught at Towson University, died March 24 of complications from dementia at Roland Park Place. She was 94. Born and raised on her parents' farm in Painesville, Ohio, Frances Heckathorne was a graduate of local public schools. After earning a bachelor's degree in 1939 from Lake Erie College, Mrs. Mueller taught English from 1943 to 1946 at Pennsylvania State University in State College, Pa. While at Penn State, she earned a master's degree in English from Columbia University in 1945, and the next year married William Randolph Mueller, a philosopher, clergyman, literary historian and author.

The National Rifle Association's push to arm school teachers and its suggestion that 40 to 60 hours of weapons training will enable them to handle a confrontation with a shooter in their classroom is short-sighted and unrealistic ("Gun advocates detail plan to arm teachers," April 3). I know from my own experience that amount of training is wholly inadequate. After seven weeks of intense weapons instruction in Army basic training, where we basically lived and slept with our weapons, we went on a night-time exercise meant to simulate battle conditions.

Rebecca Rigger, a League of Women Voters activist who monitored the Baltimore County Planning Board, died of a heart attack March 25 at her Monkton home. She was 85. Born Rebecca Rogers in Big Island, Va., she was raised at an apple orchard in the Blue Ridge Mountains. She earned a bachelor's degree from what is now James Madison University, where she was editor of the college newspaper. As a young woman, she moved to eastern Baltimore County and taught at Middle River Junior High School.

The William J. Sacco Critical Thinking Foundation presented 21 Harford County mathematics students and teachers with awards on March 10. More than 175 students, teachers and foundation sponsors walked through the doors of Liberatore's in Bel Air to gather for the second William J. Sacco Awards Banquet. Dressed to the nines, the anxious scholars awaited the results. The 2013 set of scholarships included all 10 Harford County public schools and The John Carroll School - expanded from just C. Milton Wright and Bel Air high schools.

A former leader of a youth group of a church in Severn is facing charges that he brought marijuana on a group trip and smoked it with two teenage boys while on an overnight camping trip, Anne Arundel County police said Monday. Benjamin James Siggers, 31, a former substitute teacher in Anne Arundel County Public Schools, was charged with two counts each of possession of marijuana and contributing to the condition of a child, according to court records. He was issued a summons. Police said they and the Department of Social Services began investigating Siggers Feb. 19 in connection with the Severn United Methodist Church group activities.

If a killer with an assault rifle would be deterred from attacking a school by a teacher with a pistol, he or she would simply attack a hospital, a church, a sports rally, a political meeting, a bus, etc. ("Gun advocates detail plan to arm teachers," April 3). Unarmed teachers are not the problem. William L. Akers, Windsor Mill Text NEWS to 70701 to get Baltimore Sun local news text alerts

My first question after reading about seven teachers in an Atlanta, Ga., public school accused of altering standardized test scores to make it appear students performed better than they actually did was: How could they!? The seven were nicknamed "the chosen" and, according to Georgia state investigator Richard Hyde, the less than magnificent seven sat in a locked room without windows, erasing wrong answers and inserting correct ones. It's one thing for a child to cheat on a test; it's quite another for teachers to do it. Compounding the cheating scandal is that the children in this elementary school are mostly poor and African-American.

Mary Aitken, a retired switchboard operator who taught music in Baltimore public schools, died of Alzheimer's disease March 28 at her home in the Ridervale section of Riderwood in Baltimore County. She was 89. Born Mary Wootsey Derr in Roanoke, Va., she was raised in Norfolk, Va., and graduated from Maury High School in 1946. She moved to Baltimore and earned a teacher's degree in voice at the Peabody Conservatory in 1950. There she met her husband, Richard Aitken, a jazz pianist who played at the Prime Rib and the old Eager House.