THE GAZETTE
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Wednesday, February 5, 2014 g
FUNDING
Continued from Page A-1
Malcolm Brown says icy river conditions forced him to shut down White’s Ferry in Poolesville 11 days last month. TOM FEDOR/THE GAZETTE
FERRY
Continued from Page A-1 his workplace in Ashburn, Va. Lately, with the ferry closed, he’s had to drive up to the bridge in Point of Rocks. Levine’s commute
SALT
Continued from Page A-1 times dipped into the single digits, Compton said. The State Highway Administration has had to use liquid magnesium, designed to make salt effective at much lower temperatures, in the state’s metropolitan areas where it’s usually not needed because the temperature of the pavement doesn’t generally get as cold as it has this year, said spokesman David Buck. About the only bright side has been that the cold temperatures have usually made the snow fluffy and easier to plow, he said. Buck said the winter has been a tough one around the state, with Garrett County accu-
DISCIPLINE
Continued from Page A-1 majority of offenses,” but not the most serious offenses. “This codifies the authority of the school-based administrator to use their judgment and discretion,” Webb said. The school system’s current Student Rights and Responsibilities policy includes several student actions that call for a mandatory recommendation of expulsion and mandatory referral to police. Those actions include possession of a bomb or a bomb threat, possession of firearms, a violent physical attack on a student or staff member, intent to distribute or distribution of controlled dangerous substances, and possession of weapons used to cause bodily harm or injury. The same policy lists other
takes anywhere from 40 minutes to an hour and 20 minutes, depending on which route he takes. If the ferry is sitting at the Maryland dock when he gets to the White’s Ferry parking lot, his commute takes 40 minutes, he said. “There is a gamble,” he said. “It always
has been, it always will be, but I’m glad [the ferry] is there.” Commuters may call the White’s Ferry prerecorded phone line, 301-349-5200, to find out if it is closed that day. scarignan@gazette.net
mulating more than 100 inches of snow and Ocean City getting about 13 inches. The highway agency has activated its emergency operations center 24 times since November to coordinate the response to a weather event, Buck said. The agency already has spent about $70 million on winter operations, and has used about 288,000 tons of salt to treat the 17,000 “lane miles” of roads around the state that it’s responsible for, Buck said. Different types of weather call for different responses from road crews, Compton said. When they’re dealing with snow, crews can plow the roads and then put down a light covering of salt, Compton said. But the only treatment for ice is salt. “It’s really all about the management of the pavement,”
Compton said. Keeping roads plowed and salted is important to helping keep the county’s transit system open. That means that a severe storm won’t damage the county economically by shutting down businesses or keeping workers and customers from getting to work, Compton said. But most important is making sure people can get wherever they need to go safely. “It’s all about public safety,” he said. Takoma Park has gone through about 450 tons of the mix of salt and sand that it puts on roads, said Daryl Braithwaite, the city’s director of public works. This year’s cold temperatures have meant that crews have had to work more days of extra shifts to keep treating roads where ice would often re-
freeze at night after it partially melted during the day, she said. That has forced the city to already spend close to the nearly $33,000 it had budgeted for salt and the $20,000 for overtime, Braithwaite said Monday. The city usually plans for about three storms per year with overtime and heavy treatment of streets, a point that’s already been reached. “At this point in the year, we’ve pretty much spent all that we’ve budgeted,” she said. With forecasts calling for the possibility of more snow this weekend, Buck said the highway agency’s crews will be out to deal with whatever weather comes. “All we can do is look at the next forecast,” he said.
student actions that require “discretionary school-based consequences” and mandatory police referral, which include setting a fire, gang-related incidents, possession or use of intoxicants, sexual offenses, hate violence, and theft over $500 for a single incident. Webb said the new regulations mark a “positive change,” as administrators at a school who are close to the situation can understand the context of an offense better and “look at the totality of the circumstances.” Another aim of the regulations: to end “disproportionate impact” on minority and special education students. Webb said she hopes administrators already used discretion on student conduct in certain cases, such as bringing a butter knife to use on a lunch item or chewing a pastry into the shape of a weapon. The pastry inci-
dent led to the suspension of a second-grader in Anne Arundel County. Chrisandra Richardson, associate superintendent for special education and student services, said the school system will continue to identify best practices for student discipline by looking at individual schools’ methods. The new regulations triggered “a new sense of urgency” to existing work, which also includes efforts to improve school climates and build relationships between school staff and students, she said. Richardson said the school system always provided work for suspended students, as required by the regulations. Now, the system will provide a required liaison between teachers and a suspended student or the student’s parents. The school system already used school liaisons, Richard-
son said. “This just formalizes that entire process,” she said. She said a school system work group has worked for more than a year and a half in anticipation of the state’s regulation changes, which have been discussed for several years. Technical changes to the policy will be easy, Richardson said, but the “deeper” underlying implications will be more challenging. Both officials described the importance of offering support to help individual school needs. “We feel like the work that we have to do is again not just informing people ... but really in supporting schools and all of our staff,” Richardson said. Marc Cohen, principal at Seneca Valley High School in Germantown, said kids should be treated as individuals. “We have a responsibility to be thorough in our investi-
rmarshall@gazette.net
Professional Services
executive in the June 24 primary, said Monday he believes the bill will encourage more candidates to run for office and more residents to participate in campaigns, as well as reduce the influence of special interests in government. Andrews said he’s been working on the issue since before his election to the council in 1998, including while serving as executive director of Common Cause Maryland from 1988 until 1994. That group’s current executive director, Jennifer Bevan-Dangel, praised the legislation Monday as something that could be used in other counties. “We absolutely believe that Montgomery County is setting the model for other counties to follow and for the state to follow,” Bevan-Dangel said. She said Howard and Anne Arundel counties are two that might take up similar legislation soon. Andrews’ bill also drew support from Kate Planco Waybright, executive director of Progressive Maryland, who said in a release from Common Cause Monday that public funding shifts campaigns away from big donors and toward regular voters. Waybright could not be reached for comment Monday. The bill would limit candidates who accept public financing for their campaign to donations of $150 or less from voters registered in Montgomery County. In order to qualify for the matching funds, candidates for county executive would have to get 500 in-county individual contributions and raise $40,000; at-large council candidates would be required to attract 250 individual contributions and raise $20,000; district council candidates
gations, to listen to everybody involved and make decisions that are in the best interests of the students involved in each of these different (cases),” he said. Cohen said discretion in discipline is challenging — families want consistency. The five major offenses “very rarely” come up at Seneca Valley, he said, but school staff discusses discipline. “We talk about it all the time,” he said. “Not about a need for more discretion, but about matching the consequence to the behavior.” Over the next few months, he said, school staff will talk with parents such as what triggers the behavior in more serious offenses. Another topic will be how to work with students who commit offenses and who do not have a support system at home to help them. James Fernandez, principal at Albert Einstein High School in Kensington, said he doesn’t
would need 125 contributions and raise $10,000. County executive candidates who qualify would receive $6 for every one dollar of the first $50 of an in-county contribution; $4 for every dollar of the second $50 and $2 for every dollar of the third $50. Council candidates would get $4 for each dollar of the first $50; $3 for each dollar of the second $50 and $2 for each dollar of the third $50. Andrews said he thinks that will give candidates a strong incentive to seek out as many new contributors in the county as possible and getting those people involved in the political process. The bill doesn’t put a limit on the overall level of spending, as long as donors stay within the $150 limit, Andrews said. But public financing is capped at $750,000 for county executive candidates, $250,000 for at-large council candidates — who run countywide — and $125,000 for council candidates running in a district. Andrews said the bill isn’t meant to finance an entire campaign, but just to be “a bridge to raising enough funds to be competitive.” While groups like Common Cause can’t do much to bring down the costs of running, they can find better ways for candidates to get that money, Bevan-Dangel said. Polls show a bipartisan concern about the influence of money in politics, she said. The General Assembly gave counties the ability last year to pass bills such as Andrews’, and Bevan-Dangel said the Montgomery bill would hopefully inspire other counties to take action that could hopefully lead to a bill passed on the state level. “We know others are watching,” she said. rmarshall@gazette.net
think the state regulations will change much for the school system because discretion already plays a role in “the big five.” Fernandez said that if a student commits a seemingly serious offense, the school will recommend expulsion to the school system’s central office, but can evaluate whether that is the right call. “It’s nice to have some solid ground rules and then have an influence on the outcome,” he said. Fernandez said he wants to hear from the school system’s central office what it expects from individual schools on the new regulations. The school also must consider the safety of others in the building, he said, something parents take for granted. “We need to be consistent and we need to think of safety,” he said. lpowers@gazette.net
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