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Community The Calvert Gazette Thursday, December 22, 2011 8 Town Warns of Sewer Clogging By Guy Leonard Staff Writer Tuba Christmas On Thanksgiving Day, North Beach Town Councilman Mike Benton helped out some of their public works staff deal with a clogged sewer line located at the corner of Dayton Avenue and 3rd Street; what they found after they snaked out the line was a common cause to a messy problem, sanitary wipes. Benton retold the story at the Dec. 8 council meeting and said town residents need to be more careful when it comes to what they dispose of in their household drains. He said that an overabundance of kitchen grease as well as sanitary wipes are Mike Benton the main culprits in perhaps three sewer clogging incidents in the past 18 months. “These things get caught and clog up; with that and with household grease, we’ve had problems,” Benton said. With the sanitary wipes, he said, they can become caught on any imperfection in the line and they continue to build up until they clog the system because they do not readily decompose. Residents may have a misconception, he said, that because the town is on central water and sewer it would not have the same problems associated with individual septic systems found throughout Calvert County. “They think it won’t clog but it does,” Benton said. “I even recycle my coffee grounds, I won’t put anything down the drain that shouldn’t be there.” guyleonard@countytimes.net Photo by Carrie Munn Tuba players from the tri-county area and beyond gathered recently to perform classic Christmas carols during the tenth annual Tuba Christmas at Our Lady Star of the Sea Catholic Church in Solomons. All-tuba ensembles across the nation have been putting on the holiday show for 38 years. By Sarah Miller Staff Writer Provisions Sought For Box Stores in Prince Fredrick Larger stores in Prince Frederick may be on the horizon, if discussions before the Calvert County Planning Commission on proposed changes to the Prince Fredrick zoning ordinance are realized. Randy Barrett of Bargo L.L.C. is seeking the maximum square footage to be changed from 120,000 square feet to 125,000 square feet with a 1,000-foot road setback in the New Town District of Prince Fredrick. The New Town District is east of Solomons Island Road and north of Dares Beach Road in northern Prince Frederick. According to Calvert County Planning and Zoning O’Donnell Trying to Unseat Hoyer Director Chuck Johnston, a portion of the land in the New Town District is owned by Calvert County Public Schools and the Calvert armory. Before the change can be made, there will have to be a work session and public hearing. The planning commission anticipates the public hearing being well attended with the issue of big box stores in question, members said at their Dec. 14 meeting. In a letter to Johnston, Barrett said most larger builders scale prototypes to be between 120,000 and 125,000 square feet. sarahmiller@countytimes.net By Guy Leonard Staff Writer Del. Anthony J. O’Donnell, Republican minority leader in the Maryland House of Delegates, announced last week he is taking on Steny Hoyer for the 5th District seat in Congress in 2012 and came out swinging by saying that Hoyer has contributed to the continued expansion of the federal government and national debt. O’Donnell’s announcement ends several weeks of uncertainty over whether he would seek to unseat the incumbent Democrat, who was elected to the seat in 1980. O’Donnell castigated Hoyer, accusing him of having a virtually identical voting record as that of House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, but he also recognized that his will be an uphill battle. The 5th District is overwhelmingly Democrat, with a near two-to-one advantage in voters; Hoyer defeated his last opponent in 2010, Charles Lollar, by 30 percentage points. Demographics have also shifted in key areas like Charles County, where an influx of Democrats helped carry Hoyer to victory with his solid win in Prince George’s County. “I am under no illusions with regards to the difficulties in this campaign … but I’m up to the challenge,” O’Donnell told the Calvert Gazette. “Let’s start solving this country’s problems. He’s [Hoyer] been there 31 years, what’s he doing to solve these problems.” One of O’Donnell’s key charges against Hoyer was that he was the chief vote wrangler for the Obama Administration’s health care bill, which O’Donnell said is an intrusion on personal freedoms. O’Donnell said he would campaign up to the end of November of next year, when the election will be decided. Hoyer has already stated publicly that he has filed for re-election and that he is confident that Democrats will retake the House of Representatives after being trounced by Republicans in 2010 mid-term elections. All this despite the announced retirements of several senior Democrats, including Rep. Barney Frank of Massachusetts, which some political pundits have said shows cracks in the Democratic Party’s ability to regain traction. “We need a congressman who understands what it’s like to live paycheck to paycheck … one who has not been disconnected from everyday Marylanders for so long that he doesn’t remember what it’s like to struggle,” O’Donnell said in a video release announcing his candidacy. O’Donnell was elected to represent St. Mary’s and Calvert counties in the District 29C seat in 1994, when he defeated Thomas Pelagatti by 32 votes. In 2010, O’Donnell was reelected to his fifth term. guyleonard@countytimes.net
9 Thursday, December 22, 2011 The Calvert Gazette Spotlight On Transition Students Have More Input Into Future Careers By Corrin M. Howe Staff Writer Sara Wagner, a teacher at Calvert High School, is excited her students have an opportunity to experiment with various skills in different career fields so they can provide input into the types of jobs they want when they transition out of school. She has seven students in ISLE – Intensive Structured Learning Environment, which according to Board of Education documents, “is designed to meet the needs of students who exhibit characteristics of autism spectrum disorders and whose needs cannot be met in lesser restrictive environments.” In an email inviting the Calvert Gazette to come see what her students are doing, Wagner wrote: “My students have special needs, primarily autism, and we go to the a pre-vocational work lab weekly. The [Practical Assessment Exploration System] PAES Lab is housed at the Country School and my students have been working very hard over there. The lab gives them an opportunity to try and become familiar with jobs in all types of fields. So often our special needs people are told what kind of a job they would be good at and told to do it.” According to Transition Specialist Zakia Lindsey, the school system purchased a program with grant money last year for students in the high school and functional students at Calvert Country School. The program takes skills from the career areas (consumer/service, construction/industrial, business/marketing, processing/production and computer tech) and breaks them down into smaller manageable tasks and then walks the students through learning the skill. For example, student John Kirby worked on a skill in processing/production. He pulled a large plastic bucket from the shelf and started sorting various shapes and sizes of pipes. Charts labeled from A to G had images in exact sizes that Kirby matched from pieces stored in the container. The program has him start a small timer to see how long it takes him to finish the task. Once he’s finished with the task, Wagner goes over a checklist with him to self evaluate how he did on his task. First students must decide if they finished the Victor Stew works on following instructions. His teacher says he is always happy and very quick and efficient with his tasks. John Kirby matches pipe sizes and shapes to charts. task correctly and whether they sought assistance. Next they compare their times with a chart to see if their performance fell in the category of slow, medium or fast. Finally, the students evaluate their personal interest in the task as high, medium or low. All this data is entered into a computer program which helps Wagner know the student's interests and abilities. Lindsey likes the program because the students learn real life work skills such as punching a time card. During the demonstration another real world scenario played out. Students discovered they weren't always able to locate the materials and supplies necessary to perform their tasks. In one case the box was misfiled. In another, the item wasn't in the room. “They are students now, but they will be adults in the community,” said Lindsey. And they want to be productive members of society. Wagner likes the data collection. It helps her to individualize her instruction to the student’s interests and needs. “What I’m finding is they might have a high interest level in a task, but they don’t perform it well. Now I know what I need to do to help them get good at the job.” Being organized, staying on task, following instructions, self evaluating and correcting are all “executive function” skills that many children with special needs lack. The lab also helps her to write better goals and objectives for the student’s annual educational plan. She can identify skills that need to be “generalized” or taken from one environment to another. The program is open to all the high schools but so far Calvert High and Patuxent are the only ISLE programs taking advantage of it. According to Lindsey having to travel by bus to Calvert County School in Prince Frederick is a limiting factor. Lindsey said the program has a middle school component where teachers start talking about jobs, introducing them to vocabulary and work scenarios so that they are familiarized with the lab when the students enter high school. corrin@somdpublishing.net Maryland Earns Race to the Top Grant By Corrin M. Howe Staff Writer As other states continued to slash education funding, the Maryland State Education Association (MSEA) reports that intense activism on their part led to the General Assembly restoring a large chunk of the governor’s proposed education budget cuts during legislators’ last session. As it stands, the current total of state aid to public schools is roughly $5.8 million for FY2012, with additional funding for school construction projects totaling nearly $300 million. About $47.5 million worth of those projects are funded out of appropriated funds from the new alcohol tax, with another $15 million going to the Developmental Disabilities Administration, as originally intended. The state will provide $92.7 million in education funding to St. Mary’s County for FY 2012 and $82.9 million to Calvert County, according to MSEA. Both figures are less than those for the current year. At the county level, education officials’ worry rests on local government funding, which averages at 46 percent statewide but has been under intense scrutiny by commissioners as they work through local budgets. Gaining a leg up through the federal government, Maryland was announced as one of nine states to receive a multi-million dollar grant for the Race To The Top Early Learning Challenge, reports Maryland State Department of Education. While hard numbers are unavailable, MSDE stated Maryland was eligible for $50 million over four years and these funds are targeted at narrowing the school readiness gap for disabled children, English language learners and children living in poverty. According to an MSDE press release, over the past decade, children in Maryland have improved their school readiness assessments, upon entering kindergarten, from 49 to 81 percent. Congressman Steny Hoyer (MD-5) said, “In applying for this grant, Maryland created a plan to increase access to highquality programs for children from low-income families, providing more children from birth to ages 5 with a strong foundation necessary for success in school and beyond.” Senators Mikulski and Cardin also issued statements highlighting the state’s strong support for and accomplishments in early childhood education. “As Chair of the Senate Subcommittee on Children and Families, I believe that early childhood education and care has one of the most profound impacts on a child’s future,” Mikulski stated. The funds will be channeled into comprehensive education reform that will improve academic standards and assessments, support staff and enhance achievements at the lowest performing schools. carriemunn@countytimes.net Until Behavior Improves, Patuxent High Lunch Period Shortened Patuxent High School administration has suspended student’s one-hour lunch program indefinitely. Instead, students will have a half hour lunch period either at the beginning, in the middle or at the end of their fifth period. According to the school’s website, in order to have one hour lunch reinstated, the administration will expect students to be on time to their classes, improve their behavior in the cafeteria and have a hall passes when out of class. The administration also expects public displays of affection to stop. When contacted for more information, Patuxent High School principal Nancy Highsmith said she has no comment.
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