Van Bokkelen

"Cecil B. Demented," the Hollywood satire John Waters directed in Baltimore last year, has been selected to play in the non-competitive section of the Cannes Film Festival this year. The comedy, which stars Stephen Dorff, Alicia Witt and Melanie Griffith, will be shown along with films by Brian De Palma, Ang Lee and Dave Stewart of Eurythmics. "Things You Can Tell Just By Looking at Her," the directorial debut of Rodrigo Garcia, will make its European premiere at the festival. Garcia received early financing for the project with a Producers Club of Maryland Fellowship.

Community leaders and developers of the Arundel Mills mall under construction in Hanover are holding a series of job fairs over the next few months to recruit workers from around the county for construction and retail positions. The announcement yesterday, part of a community outreach effort by Arundel Mills, came minutes after company officials presented Van Bokkelen Elementary School Principal Rose Tasker with $3,000 to use toward a new playground at the Severn school, a few miles from the mall site.

Severn's Van Bokkelen Elementary School -- threatened with state takeover three years ago because of consistently low scores in Maryland School Performance Assessment Program tests -- was among 14 in Anne Arundel County praised for their improvement yesterday.At a ceremony in Essex, Gov. Parris N. Glendening and state Superintendent Nancy S. Grasmick recognized 237 elementary and middle schools for MSPAP improvements.Ninety-four of the schools also won a share of the $2.75 million awarded yesterday by the state for "substantial and meaningful improvement" toward meeting the state's educational standards.

GOOD, BUT not good enough. That's Superintendent Carol S. Parham's appraisal of Anne Arundel County's recent scores on the Maryland School Performance Assessment Program.County schools have been steadily improving their scores, but Dr. Parham believes performance could improve markedly if the community more strongly supported its education system.Dr. Parham believes the schools lack two ingredients: esteem and money. In nearby Montgomery and Howard, high-quality school systems define the counties.

Think of a landfill as a trash pie."There is a crust, or liners, at the top and bottom and trash in the middle," Beryl Friel, Anne Arundel County's recycling coordinator, told 350 elementary and middle school students yesterday as they toured the county landfill in Millersville.Friel, who had made herself up as Re-Re the clown -- with white face paint and a red nose -- greeted children from Annapolis Middle School and Cape St. Claire, Odenton, Van Bokkelen and West Meade elementary schools when they got off their buses to begin the second annual "Trash Odyssey" at the landfill.

IMPROVEMENTS at Severn's Van Bokkelen Elementary demonstrate the value of the Maryland School Performance Assessment Program. This school was the first in Maryland's suburbs to be included on the state's "reconstitution" list two years ago.In terms of performance, Van Bokkelen had always pulled up the rear in Anne Arundel County. Students started out lagging in basic skills and would fall farther behind. Despite persistent low test scores, high absenteeism and other red flags, the county system did little to turn the school around.

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.

Anne Arundel County school officials are putting the best face on a generally disappointing showing by county schools in Maryland State Performance Assessment Program test scores released to school board members first and then to the public this week.Overall, 47.1 percent of the county's students performed satisfactorily on this year's MSPAP tests, which are taken each spring by every third- , fifth- and eighth-grade student to measure how well they apply basic knowledge and skills to solve real-world problems.

About 200 Van Bokkelen Elementary School students stayed after school yesterday -- all in good fun.They had their first chance to shoot baskets, color and play board games, Foosball and pool on the opening day of the Van Bokkelen Boys & Girls Club in Severn."

The superintendent of Anne Arundel County public schools this week called in four principals and told them their schools were on a list of poor performers that need help, which the county intends to provide.Superintendent Carol S. Parham brought in the principals of George Fox Middle School in Pasadena, Mills-Parole and Tyler Heights Elementary schools in Annapolis and Woodside Elementary in Glen Burnie on Tuesday and told them they were on her "Alert List," she announced Friday.That news is not good.