Year Round Schools

With the Anne Arundel County school system facing a staggering $384 million price tag over the next five years to build and renovate schools to house increasing enrollment, a county councilwoman thinks it's time to give year-round schools a look.Maureen Lamb, an Annapolis Democrat who once served on the school board, has introduced a resolution that would take up Gov. William Donald Schaefer's challenge to create a year-round schooling pilot program.Mr. Schaefer said he wanted at least one of Maryland's 24 school systems to volunteer to institute the schedule, as early as next fall if possible.

The name of one county task force created last year to study school construction issues said it all: The Ugly Alternatives Committee. It was so titled because the substitutes to building new schools -- redistricting, year-round schools, temporarily facilities -- are often considered odious.Marylanders, and the people put in charge of running their public schools, have gotten comfortable -- perhaps even addicted -- to the system of the past generation, in which the state footed most of the bill for new schools.

Year-round schools won't come to Anne Arundel County any time soon.School board members appeared intrigued yesterday by the idea but said they need more information than they got from a task force that recommended consideration of a pilot program."

For those who expected 1994 to bring Howard County a break in the clouds of an overcast economy, County Executive Charles I. Ecker all but deflated that hope last week. In his annual state of the county address, Mr. Ecker admonished members of the county Chamber of Commerce not to expect much in the way of new services from local government. If anything, Mr. Ecker made it clear that one of his primary goals will be to cut the budget, particularlythat of the education department.Defying election-year norms, when officials try to place a shiny patina over nasty facts, Mr. Ecker chose to deliver a glum report, consistent with his previous years as executive.

EVEN THOUGH the Howard County School Board last week rejected an ill-conceived and disturbing plan for year-round schools, the issue seems to have more lives than an alley cat.As board members were about to vote, Associate Superintendent Maurice Kalin recommended that they continue to consider year-around schools as a "fallback position" should a financial crisis strike the county. The board, by a 4-to-1 vote, rejected that idea, but the death knell sounded tentative. Another time and another board could very well resurrect this misguided notion.

WHILE HOWARD County took little time dispatching with the year-round school issue, across the border in Anne Arundel the issue is still kicking. The Howard school board drove a stake through the idea of year-round schools so swiftly and surely that Sen. Christopher J. McCabe recently withdrew his bill calling for a voter referendum on the topic, which some people viewed as unnecessary piling on.But in Anne Arundel, a task force is recommending that individual...

Bells no longer toll in the school yard to herald a new year. Those are relics of a simpler time. Now there are electronic buzzers, and the business of educating has grown increasingly complex.Despite the many changes, Howard County schools, which open Monday, have maintained a sterling reputation that should make nearly every parent proud and reassured. Besides consistently scoring above U.S. and state averages on the national achievement tests, Howard has scored No. 1 in the Maryland School Performance Report Card for three years running.

Gov. William Donald Schaefer outlined his legislative agenda for this year -- his final year as governor -- during yesterday's State of the State address. Here are highlights of what he is proposing:GUN CONTROLLimit purchases of many firearms to one per month per person, similar to Virginia law. A ban on the sale or transfer of 18 types of military-style assault pistols and of ammunition magazines holding more than 20 rounds. Increase penalties for the illegal sale or transfer of regulated firearms.

Twelve people have agreed to take on the monumental task of redrawing school attendance boundaries throughout the county.One person from each high school district is on the committee, which must decide where to seat the 69,000-and-growing student population.Named to the committee were: Rhonda Pindell Charles, Don Everitt, Bob Wakefield, Bruce McGuiness, Christine Davenport, Jean Peterson, Bill Church, Dale Wills, Lisa Pitocco, Debbie Fitzgerald, Cathy Tornabene and Keith McAllister.The suggestion to redistrict schools on a countywide basis emerged in January during an annual discussion about redistricting for fall 1994.

Letters, I get letters. But few as interesting and entertaining as the impassioned epistles written by the fifth-graders at Glen Burnie's Point Pleasant Elementary on the subject of year-round schools.Usually letters to the editor from students read exactly like what they are: an assignment, something the kids had to do. The Point Pleasant children were asked to write to us as a project for Newspaper Education Month last month. But their letters are different; they have the ring of genuine emotion and burgeoning conviction.