Van Bokkelen

Van Bokkelen Elementary School is different this school year -- from the dolphin motif in the cafeteria to the 15 classroom teachers new to the school.From fresh paint to training in classroom techniques, the changes are designed to help turn around a school with standardized test scores so low that the state warned the county in February to reform the school or risk a state takeover.Positive attitudes and atmosphere were the first order of business yesterday.Before the fidgeting students who had gathered in the cafeteria learned their class assignments, they learned that "whatever I wish, whatever I dream, whatever I try for, whatever I plan, it is mine, if only I believe."

Principal Rose M. Tasker must hear the clock ticking.Two years ago, she took on an impossible job: Within five years turn around Van Bokkelen Elementary School in Anne Arundel County and prevent a state takeover of the troubled school. She has three years left."This isn't just a job to me, it's a mission," she said recently. "I am not worried that it can't be done."Tasker, 50, is strict but soft-spoken, a hard worker whose office lights are often on well after school days end. Those long hours have paid off with an improved school attendance record, fewer disciplinary problems and noticeably more motivated and enthusiastic pupils and teachers.

County school officials want to add an administrator to cope with discipline problems, hire a part-time liaison to link Van Bokkelen Elementary school and its community, buy textbooks, train teachers and start after-school programs in an effort to save the failing school.Anne Arundel County Schools Superintendent Carol S. Parham is to deliver the plan today to the state Board of Education and tomorrow to the county school board in response to the state threat to take over the school in Severn.

IN ONE RESPECT, public school principals are like sports coaches. They don't last long when something goes wrong, regardless of the extent to which they're responsible. Thus, the removal of Principal Charles Owens from Severn's Van Bokkelen Elementary was predictable from the moment state educators threatened to take over the school if test scores don't improve.What parents need to know is whether this change is anything more than Anne Arundel County Superintendent Carol S. Parham trying to prove she's serious about getting this school on track; whether a new principal really is in the best interests of the children.

SOME PARENTS may wonder about the quality of Anne Arundel public schools after the State Department of Education suggested it can run Van Bokkelen Elementary in Severn better than the county school board. The state has threatened to take over three dozen public schools because their students perform consistently poorly. But Anne Arundel is the only county in the relatively wealthy Baltimore-Washington suburbs to have a school on the list. Of the others, 35 are in Baltimore City and one in rural Somerset County.

County schools officials yesterday said they will ask the state and local governments to help pay for overhauling Van Bokkelen Elementary School and helping its troubled neighborhood.Van Bokkelen Elementary is the state's first suburban school threatened with takeover.The official word came yesterday, shortly after a meeting between Maryland Schools Superintendent Nancy S. Grasmick and top county education officials.Anne Arundel County Superintendent Carol S. Parham said she wanted the threat of state takeover to be a "point of mobilization."

Charles Owens, the principal of failing Van Bokkelen Elementary School, was removed yesterday from his job by the school board.The board's decision came nearly two weeks after the state Department of Education put the Severn school on a potential takeover list because of poor student performance.Mr. Owens will be replaced Monday by Rose Tasker, the principal at Woodside Elementary School in Glen Burnie, who has done extensive work with impoverished children and programs that target them.Mr.

For nearly a decade, Rose Tasker has strived to improve the performance of Van Bokkelen Elementary School on state exams despite the problems its students face, including poverty and frequent family moves. The Severn school has made significant gains under Tasker's leadership, but the retiring principal recently got some bad news: Van Bokkelen failed to meet two of the standards in reading and math set by the state under the federal No Child Left Behind law. It might seem a tough way to say goodbye for Tasker, who was singled out earlier this month by Anne Arundel County Schools Superintendent Eric J. Smith for creating a strong foundation at Van Bokkelen.

The state test scores for Van Bokkelen Elementary School in (( Severn, Maryland's first failing suburban elementary school, /^ improved this year, but not by much.The composite index for the school -- a formula that evaluates third- and fifth-grade performance on the Maryland School Performance Assessment Program (MSPAP) tests as well as attendance rate and other variables -- rose from 18.46 in 1995 to 19.25 this year, according to test information released yesterday by the state Department of Education.

Officials at Van Bokkelen Elementary School in Severn are gearing up for major changes starting this summer that they hope will help Van Bokkelen shake off its status as Anne Arundel County's lowest-performing school. Tomorrow is the deadline for Van Bokkelen to submit a self-improvement plan to the State Department of Education that would give pupils three extra weeks of instruction, reduce class sizes and replace staff, if needed. Seventy other Maryland schools are in the same boat, labeled by state education officials as in need of "restructuring."