Year Round Schools

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.

Children are learning all the time, Baltimore schools Superintendent Walter G. Amprey is fond of saying. They learn even in the summer, a 10-week vacation for the vast majority of Maryland's 750,000 schoolchildren.Do kids fall behind during that time? Is there "summer learning loss," as the educators call it? Dumber for the summer?Depends on what kind of learning you're talking about -- and what kind of students. Also depends on whose research you're looking at. "It's very clear that all children do better on testing if they go to school in the summer, but low-income children gain the most," says Charles Ballinger, who heads the National Association for Year-Round Education.

Longer School Year QuestionedIn theory year-round schools are good, but in practice this may not be so. Many things need to be considered. Some follow:How easy will it be for parents to get sporadic day-care, as young students will need sitters for three weeks every nine weeks through the year?If the schools provide for this care, where will that lead, as one of the purposes of year-round schools is to better use the school rooms for educating students and not baby-sitting them?Will the system accommodate parents who may have more than one student in different grades so that all will have the same vacation time?

Good Schools In Howard? HardlyYour editorial of Dec. 13 on "Vouchers: Wrong Idea, Wrong Place" (in Howard County) was worthless. You call the voucher idea flawed and say it is not the way to improve the education of our youth. You cite "impressive" statistics for Howard County from the state Department of Education: percentage to college; low dropout; dollars spent per pupil -- that sort of camouflage. You refer to Howard County's school system as one of the best.Compared to what? Other public schools?

The End of Summer, Forever?Since I am writing this on the first day of school, I feel the urge to write the obligatory first-day assignment: "How I Spent My Summer Vacation."As the mother of two boys (eight and six years old) and a 3-year-old girl, I'd like to report that we enjoyed the best that the summer has to offer.We spent countless days at the pool, rode bikes, waded in the stream where we caught crawfish, started a bug collection, attended the Howard County Fair, spent a week at the beach and visited family and friends we're too busy to spend much time with during the school year.

OK, it's over.Tomorrow, the kids go back to school, summer unofficially ends and the daily rituals begin.Have they had breakfast? Are their lunches made? Are their backpacks ready? Did they forget their violins? Did they brush their teeth? How will they ever get to the bus on time?This isn't the fast lane, no glamour or glitz.This is Parenthood 101. The basics.In a while, we'll settle in and start surveying the scene. Just what does the school system have in store for us this year, because this isn't just about educating the kids.

A Howard County forum on year-round education brought out more than 200 curious citizens who left with mixed reactions to the idea of a different school-year calendar.Some parents who attended yesterday's forum in Ellicott City said that they needed more information on year-round education, a nationally growing trend that has attracted Gov. William Donald Schaefer's attention as a possible solution to costly school construction.The forum, believed to be the first of its kind in the state, comes as the governor pushes school districts to test year-round education as early as next school year.

A second Howard County resident has announced his bid for a seat on the five-member Board of Education.Stephen Bounds, a 38-year-old Republican who lives in Lisbon, announced his candidacy last week, saying he hopes to steer the school system back to basics after years of what he sees as misdirection."

Students worried about having to spend their summers in the classroom have little to fear: Year-round schools won't be coming to Maryland anytime soon.The idea -- pushed by former Gov. William Donald Schaefer as a cheap way to solve student crowding -- has failed to gain support in the state's fastest-growing counties. And with Gov. Parris N. Glendening taking a more passive role in the debate, it doesn't appear that that's going to change."Year-round education is not dead, but it may be in hibernation," said Eileen Oickle, a senior specialist in middle and high school learning in the state's Department of Education.