2003-04 Annual Report - Harford County Public Schools

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Grothe takes first in state writing contest Leah T. Grothe is a gifted writer. If you don’t believe it, just read the essay last year’s 13-year old, Fallston Middle School eighth grader submitted to the Harford County Reading Council for its 2003-04 writing contest. If you’re still not sure, consider the entry won first place in the local middle school competition last year. If you still have your doubts, take a look at the letter she received in early February from the State of Maryland International Reading Council (SoMIRAC) informing her that she had won first place in the state writing contest for second through eighth graders. Her free verse poem, entitled “Guardians,” called upon the forces of nature to protect her from all that would harm her. “I like to write — it gives me the freedom to express my thoughts — especially fiction writing where I don’t have to have experienced what I’m writing about or it doesn’t have to be real,” Ms. Grothe said minutes after having been among those honored by the Harford County Reading Council at its annual awards ceremony, held at Southampton Middle School, February 17th. “I might like to consider writing (as a vocation) some day.” Right now the ‘Straight A’ student says she has lots of options, listing Science, English, and History as her favorite subjects. “My teacher, Ms. (Kathleen) Mikos, inspired me,” said Ms. Grothe of her eighth grade experience. “She didn’t give us a subject to write about, she just said to write about what we were interested in — that and growing up with my Mom (Melanie Ruckle) is what inspired me.” Ms. Grothe and the more than 200 others who entered this year’s 23rd annual Reading Council writing contest were asked to compose poetry with the theme of “You’re a Poet and Don’t Know It.” Twenty-eight of Harford’s 32 public elementary schools took part in the contest, with four of its eight middle schools and four of its nine high schools also having entries. In addition, five private schools in the county participated. LEAH GROTHE A m a n d a S h e r r y w a s H a r f o r d T e c h ’ s K . C . c o n n e c t i o n Each year, students from Harford Technical High School compete in Skills USA-VICA competitions. There is usually a regional competition, followed by a state competition. and then the nationals which are held in Kansas City, Missouri. For the second year in a row in 2003-04, students from Tech’s Printing and Graphic Communication class won first and third places at state competition. Placing third was Shavon Worrell and taking first was Amanda Sherry. With financial support from Printing and Imaging Industries of Maryland and The Litho Club of Baltimore, Amanda was able to attend the national competition, accompanied by her parents, instructor, and three additional students who also placed first in their contests. At Kansas City she participated in opening ceremonies, several meetings, a day of preparation for competition, a full day of competition and closing ceremonies. She also got to do a little shopping, as well as watch a Kansas City Royals baseball game. Placing 14th out of 37 competitors, Amanda said she was “a bit disappointed” at the outcome. Putting it all into perspective, though, she acknowledged she was among a group of the country’s top students and was proud to represent her school and state in national competition. AMANDA & MONICA - Amanda Sherry and her instructor, Monica Chiveral in front of the Printing and Graphic Communication contest area at the Kansas City Convention Center. PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT - Amanda Sherry practices running the Heidelberg press in preparation for the competition the next day. ‘Traveling Company’ aims to save lives NHMS TRAVELING COMPANY - About 85 strong, the North Harford Middle School seventh and eighth graders who made up the 2003-04 ‘Traveling Company’ interactive performing group, are making a difference in the lives of elementary and middle school students in two states. Their 15-minute plays depict situations teens and pre-teens experience regularly and attempt to have their audiences come up with suggestions for wise choices. Even cast members of the North Harford Middle School Traveling Company are surprised at the intensity of the reaction to what they present. “It’s as if some of the people in our audiences see their lives being played out on stage,” said 13-year-old, 2003-04 seventh grader Ryan O’Hara. “I really didn’t expect the way we’ve connected with the people.” Ryan was one of about 85 seventh and eighth graders who came together last school year to enter into something bigger than all of them put together. Under the direction of seventh grade Integrated Language Arts teacher Jane B. Travis, late in the 2002-03 school year the youngsters wrote scenes that were incorporated into an original 15-minute interactive, educational “psychodrama” about the problems and temptations faced by middle school students. Topics include insecurity, peer pressure, and situations that test character values. At the start of last school year, eighth graders who had worked on the play last year, augmented by a number of seventh graders, tried out for parts in the play entitled “Why Me.” Divided into traveling troupes of from 12 to 17 players, the students have taken their performances to about 15 elementary and middle schools in Harford County and South Eastern School District in Pennsylvania. Playing young people who make bad choices in situations that face teens and pre-teens on an almost daily basis, the Traveling Company invites members of their audiences to suggest how the characters could have made wiser decisions. Mrs. Travis, who spent 30 years teaching English to juniors, directing musicals, running the school TV station, and putting together a similar traveling company at Kennard-Dale High School in neighboring Fawn Grove, Pennsylvania, said she is thrilled to see how sincere her middle school students have been in reaching out to others their age or younger. “We try to help people realize that a bad decision they make now could result in a bad outcome,” said then 13-year old, eighth grader Lauren McGehee. Members of the troupe practice after school and, when they leave school to put on performances, are responsible to get prior approval from their teachers and make up all missed work. Mrs. Travis, who lives in Fawn Grove with her husband Ralph, a retired teacher, said she ends each of her Company’s performances with an admonition to the audience. “I tell them that a close friend that only listens when someone tells them about a problem they are having is not enough. You must reach out and help that person find the assistance they need.” Representatives of the Office of Drug Control Policy of the Harford County government attended several recent performances by the Traveling Company and have described the interactive plays as “extremely important in helping with our prevention efforts of keeping kids from using cigarettes, alcohol, and illegal drugs as they face challenges to their values and self-esteem,” Mrs. Travis reported. Mrs. Travis, mother of four grown children and with two granddaughters, said the new play for 2004-05 includes a variety of additional situations as well as ones that were included in the 2003-04 production.
AUTHOR/ADMINISTRATOR - Dwayne ‘Buzz’ Williams showed off an advance copy of his new book, ‘Spare Parts,’ an accounting of his experiences as a Marine reservist called to duty in the First Gulf War. The Bel Air High School first year assistant principal spent 11 years at the Kennedy-Krieger School in Baltimore providing educational services for students with conduct disorders. Brian Folus had work published nationally The way Brian H. Folus figures it, if his arrangement of William Boyce’s Symphony #1 is purchased by one music teacher, his ten percent royalty will get him a meal at McDonald’s. If two teachers buy it, then he can include his nine year old daughter, Sarah, in the feast. Mr. Folus, a 20-year Harford County Public School instrumental music teacher – the last 11 at Fountain Green Elementary School – had his treatment of the 18 th century English composer’s work published this past summer in the Alfred international catalog, one of the world’s most respected publications of band and orchestral music for purchase by those who conduct musicians from elementary school to adults. The 47-year-old Randallstown native arranged the eight-minute, three movement piece during the summer of 2002 for the middle-school-aged students in his Harford Strings Orchestra, a group he founded five years ago which performs critically acclaimed concerts each November and April to sold out audiences. One of only about ten to 15 composers/arrangers to have been chosen by the California-based publishing company for inclusion in the 2004 catalog, Mr. Folus said the circumstances under which his work was selected represent a series of happy coincidences. “I sent a tape of the Harford Strings Orchestra performance of the piece along with the score to Richard Meyer, the strings editor of Alfred,” said Mr. Folus of the fall 2002 submission. “Later, I received a communication from Mr. Meyer saying I had ‘made the first cut’ but I had to wait till July (2003) to find out if I had been accepted for publication.” Then came the call from Mr. Meyer on July 22, 2003 with good news that Mr. Folus’ work would be made available for purchase through the catalog and related outlets, along with other top musical compositions/arrangements next summer. The music teacher, who holds the distinction of having replaced legendary Harford County Hall of Fame educator Ray Dombrowski as orchestra leader at Bel Air High School in 1985, said he spent eight or nine weeks, two-to-three hours a day arranging the Boyce work. Much of his efforts went into changing the key of the original work from B flat to G, simplifying the rhythms without compromising the intent of the composer, and converting the second movement from featuring oboes to highlighting fist violins. Seven years ago, the Bel Air-area resident had teamed with C. Milton Wright High School orchestra teacher Sheldon Bair and former HCPS Music Supervisor Bruce Kovacs (current North Harford Middle School principal) to organize the Harford Youth Orchestra, a group for high school students associated as a non-credit offering of Harford Community College. At the same time, when it became apparent there was an interest among serious musicians of middle school age for a similar group, he founded and has directed from the outset of the Harford Strings Orchestra, a group that has grown to 65 members. The group practices ten to 13 times in preparation for its two concerts presented at the William H. Amoss Center at Harford Technical High School. When Fountain Green Elementary was getting set to open in 1993, Mr. Folus made the decision to team with the school’s first principal, Marlin Dellinger, in organizing a new program. “It was like starting with a clean slate – building a program, literally, from a pile of dirt,” said Mr. Folus of the challenge. “You get fourth graders, many of whom who have never played before, but, by Christmas, they are making real musical sounds.” ‘Buzz’ Williams’ book was released in March In 2003, when news reports began to fill the air waves about the Second Gulf War, Dwayne E. “Buzz” Williams couldn’t watch, but couldn’t help from watching. The invasion of Iraq by U.S. forces brought back painful memories of a decade before when Bel Air High School’s first year assistant principal, in just 38 days, went from being a student teacher to a front line participant in the 1991 conflict. So impacted was the Baltimore County native that sleepless nights led to the need to put his thoughts as a former Marine reservist called to active duty on paper. Now, those words have been compiled into a book – Spare Parts — that was released in March 2004 by Gotham Books, a subsidiary of the giant Penguin Press publishing house. Warner Brothers has already shown preliminary interest in buying the movie rights to the book which outlines the thoughts, fears, confusion, and anxiety that resulted as he was uprooted from a career path in the classroom and thrust into life and death situations of war. “Today, half of the 2.1 million men and women in the U.S. Armed Forces are reservists or guardsmen,” said the 35-year-old father of two. “The name of the book comes from my (Marine) drill instructor who, during basic, used that term to describe reservists, and, although he said it wasn’t meant as a slam, it was just that.” Mr. Williams, who was paid a $175,000 advance for the book, was on leave two weeks in March on a nationwide book tour to promote the publication. Mr. Williams – known as ‘Buzz’ since 1975 when he was seven-years-old and had his hair cropped close to his head to match his 18-year-old Marine Corps brother’s look – said he was so disillusioned by his and other reservists’ lack of readiness for combat that, when he returned to America in April of 1991, he was allowed to make changes in the Marines’ training of its reservists. “I was in the middle of my student teaching assignment when I was called up on November 18th and told to go home and get ready to be mobilized,” Mr. Williams said. “Thirty-eight days later, our unit – the 2nd Light Armored Battalion, D Company — was on the way to the Persian Gulf.” Mr. Williams, a vehicle crewman, served on the eight-wheeled armored vehicle that was used to help form the razor thin line that acted as a deterrent against Hussein’s forces invading Saudi Arabia once the air bombardment of Baghdad began on January 17th. “When the Scud missiles began to be fired by the Iraqis, each time we had to get in our chemical/biological/nuclear protective clothing, just in case, and pray that they didn’t leak,” he said of the harrowing days prior to the order being given to invade by land. “We crossed the border into Kuwait on February 24th as part of the third wave to liberate Kuwait.” The 2nd Armored Light Battalion’s major role was to intercept fleeing Iraqis, seeking to get back across the Kuwait border to join up with Iraqi forces. They were also called upon to eliminate threats from Iraqis and Palestinians — who had been compelled to work for the Kuwaitis, many of whom were openly sympathetic to the Iraqis. Though the “official” war lasted just 100 hours, Mr. Williams’ unit was still taking and giving fire through April when they were finally sent home. Returning to finish his degree, he found no Physical Education teaching jobs open in regular public or private schools. Instead, he took a job at the Johns Hopkins-based Kennedy-Krieger special school in Baltimore City to begin a Physical Education program for middle-school aged children with “conduct disorders.” “I couldn’t be happier here at Bel Air,” he said. “I plan on a long career in administration in the Harford County Public Schools.” ROBERT PECK (center) - enjoys a few minutes with media specialists from Harford County Public Schools. From left to right, Terry LaPorte, Supervisor of Library Services; and media specialists Emily Andrews, YBES; Jane Ennis, Jarrettsville; Melissa Friedman, Wm. S. James; Joanne Slagle, Magnolia Elementary; and Debbie Kinsler, Havre de Grace High. Mr. Peck is a renowned author who visited the Harford County Public Schools last year. REACHING YOUTH - Dr. Richard Smalley reaches out to youth in an effort to get them excited about potential futures as scientists. The Nobel Prize winner addressed C. Milton Wright High school students last year.
Page 1 and 2: Harford County Public Schools 2003-
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Page 5 and 6: Harford shows significant progress
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Page 13 and 14: HCPS Educator Hall of Fame Class of
Page 15 and 16: ‘Ginny’ Hinckley is 2004 Math T
Page 17 and 18: CMW’s Rabe is named national awar
Page 19 and 20: Advertisement Joan McVeigh Hayden
Page 21 and 22: Advertisement Planning was complete
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2003-04 Annual Report - Harford County Public Schools

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