Friday, June 1, 2012
School news from across Montgomery County Patches.
With nearly 200 public schools and scores of private schools in Montgomery County, there's bound to be plenty of news. Here are the top school headlines from across Montgomery County's Patch sites from Friday, May 25 through Thursday, May 31: Julius West Student Competes in National Spelling Bee ROCKVILLE—Reid Aleksander FitzHugh, a 13-year-old eighth-grader at Julius West Middle School, competed in the Scripps National Spelling Bee at National Harbor. Read the full story on Rockville Patch. SPEAK OUT: Should MCPS Close Schools For Muslim Holidays? GAITHERSBURG—Montgomery County Councilman George Leventhal suggests MCPS should adjust its calendar to provide two school closing days for the two most religious Muslim holidays. Read the full …
Friday, May 25, 2012
School news from across Montgomery County Patches.
With nearly 200 public schools and scores of private schools in Montgomery County, there's bound to be plenty of news. Here are the top school headlines from across Montgomery County's Patch sites from Friday, May 18 through Wednesday, May 23: School Employees Negotiate Tentative 3% Raise COLESVILLE—Public school workers in Montgomery County will see their first pay raise in years, school officials announced Monday, May 21. Read the full story on Colesville Patch. Elected Officials 'Teach for a Day' CHEVY CHASE—Seven of Montgomery County's elected officials spent Thursday, May 10 teaching, as part of the Montgomery County Education Association's first "Teach for a Day" program. Read the full story on Chevy Chase Patch. Einstein Student's …
Thursday, May 17, 2012
School news from across Montgomery County Patches.
With nearly 200 public schools and scores of private schools in Montgomery County, there's bound to be plenty of news. Here are the top school headlines from across Montgomery County's Patch sites from Friday, May 11 through Wednesday, May 16. Student's Election to County PTAs Post Draws Ire, Defenders ROCKVILLE—The election of 15-year-old Richard Montgomery High School freshman Richie Yarrow as recording secretary of the 48,000-member organization that represents PTAs from schools around Montgomery County yields controversy. Read the full story on Rockville Patch. Reports: MCPS Rolls Out New Curriculum COLESVILLE—A new curriculum that focuses on critical thinking skills is now in more classrooms throughout Montgomery County Public Schools…
Friday, May 4, 2012
After three years of setbacks, the Gaithersburg High School is implementing Project Lead The Way starting next year.
After years of struggle, Quince Orchard High School will begin offering rigorous courses through a program called Project Lead The Way, which provides course materials and teacher training in science, technology, engineering and math across the U.S. For the 2012-2013 school year, seven introduction to engineering classes will be offered, and 325 students have already signed up, according to Julie Newcomer, a fine practical arts resource teacher and signature coordinator for the program. Bringing the program to the school was no easy feat. In 2009, Quince Orchard engineering teacher Nikki Sumner registered to train at Project Lead The Way, which costs the county $5,000 in training per teacher. Just weeks prior to becoming certified, the …
Wednesday, April 11, 2012
School districts in Maryland and Virginia are closing early for the year after using none of their built-in snow days.
While a mild winter and lack of snow left young students in Maryland without days off from school to sled and relax, they may be getting the last laugh. Students in Baltimore, Prince George’s, Anne Arundel, Howard and Carroll counties are likely to start their summer breaks a week early due to a mild winter that produced no snow days, according to a report by Savage-Guilford Patch. Frederick County Public Schools are also likely to close early, without having used any of their built-in snow days, an FCPS spokesperson told Patch. But Montgomery County Public Schools — with the last day scheduled for Tuesday, June 12 — has no current plans to wrap up early, MCPS spokesman Dana Tofig told Patch in an email. “I am not aware that this is being…
Monday, April 9, 2012
Maryland's General Assembly is poised to approve a bill to increase the state's minimum dropout age from 16 to 17, and gradually to 18.
Should Maryland require high school students to be 18 years old in order to drop out? The General Assembly is expected to pass a bill proposing to increase Maryland's minimum school dropout age from 16 to 18 years old, according to a report by WTOP. Express your opinion on the topic in the comments section below. The change will align Maryland with Virginia and D.C., where the dropout age is already set at 18. "Gov. Martin O'Malley is expected to sign the bill, which is on its third and final reading in the House," the report states. The change — according to the bill — is gradual, with the minimum age first increasing to 17 on July 1, 2015, and to 18 two years later. The bill provides some exceptions for students to dropout early, …
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
Montgomery County Public Schools will stop using meat with a finely textured beef additive also known as "pink slime" for the 2012-13 school year.
Montgomery County Public Schools will join many other companies and organizations in ceasing the use of Lean Finely Textured Beef (LFTB)—also known as "pink slime"—in its school lunches for the 2012-13 school year, MCPS spokesman Dana Tofig said. MCPS currently gets its beef for school lunches from two sources, contracted vendors and the federal government's commodities program, Tofig told Patch. Only one of MCPS's vendors uses LFTB in processing, Tofig said, adding some of the processors used by the commodities program use it as well. "After this year, we will be opting out of purchasing or receiving any items that uses [LFTB] and we are adjusting the bids we have for our own vendors to indicate that it shouldn't be used," Tofig wrote in…
Tuesday, February 28, 2012
The school's preschool education program provides help for special needs children, according to a report by The Town Courier.
With one son already enrolled at Rachel Carson Elementary School, a Lakelands Park family will send his brother a little further down the road to Stone Mill. Three-year-old Bryce Goldblatt is expected to begin the Preschool Education Program at SMES Feb. 28, according to a report by The Town Courier. Bryce suffers from Phelan-McDermid Syndrome, a rare genetic disorder that affects only 600 people in the world, his mother, Jenna Goldblatt, told The Town Courier. The disorder "affects every aspect of [Bryce's] life — cognitive, gross and fine motor, and speech.” Phelan-McDermid Syndrome is caused by the absence or loss of genes at the tip of the 22nd chromosome. "This gene," according to the Phelan-McDermid Syndrome Foundation, "plays a …
Monday, February 20, 2012
The Heritage Cafe, an annual event celebrating black history month, welcomed Pulitzer Prize winner Leonard Pitts, Jr.
Ridgeview Middle School hosted a full gym of parents and students on Friday evening at a Black History event called the Heritage Cafe. Highlights of the evening included an energetic RMS Step Team performance and the message of guest speaker, Leonard Pitts, Jr. Pitts, a novelist and Pulitzer Prize winner for commentary, called out to the young people in the audience and told them that he was not going to list off all of the prominent African-Americans who did extraordinary things. He said he knew they've been told about them, but he feared that kids in their generation may not understand how hard it was for them to do those great deeds. “What makes them extraordinary was not only what they did,” he told the audience. “What makes them …
Wednesday, February 8, 2012
Multiple students expressed concern to MCPS Superintendent Joshua Starr regarding a flier that was distributed at Wootton and Einstein high schools last week.
Multiple students expressed concern over a flier Wootton Principal Michael Doran called "anti-gay propaganda" that was distributed at some Montgomery County Public Schools last week. The fliers, by Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays and Gays (PFOX), were sent home with students at Wootton and Einstein high schools explaining that being gay is a choice. During a student town hall event at the Rockville High School Tuesday morning, Superintendent Joshua Starr was asked via Twitter why MCPS allows groups like PFOX to send information home with students. “I find the actions of PFOX to be reprehensible and deplorable, but we are bound by law to enable non-profits to distribute fliers four times per year,” Starr said. “We can’t really do much about …
nancy edwards
5:39 pm on Thursday, April 19, 2012
If they closed the Friday before the kids would lose 1.5 days of signing yearbooks, helping teachers pack up classrooms, and busy work not instructional time. I think in many families it would just be finding child care for that Monday. Most families would have already made plans for the 1/2 day Tuesday. Teachers would still be in the buildings those days and in-school day care options would … more ›