THE GAZETTE
Page A-12
Wednesday, March 26, 2014 g
SCHOOL LIFE
EDUCATION NOTEBOOK Wootton High singers and dancers in ‘Hairspray’
PEGGY MCEWAN/THE GAZETTE
Yi-Cheng Chen, an architect with Grimm and Parker in Calverton, looks on as high school students work on an elementary school site design during a break-out session at the Young Professionals Conference on Thursday at the Universities at Shady Grove in Rockville.
Students network with business professionals n
Students experience solving problems in the workplace BY
PEGGY MCEWAN STAFF WRITER
Students stood around an elementary school site plan, moving cutouts of classrooms, the cafeteria, the gym, playing fields and other elements of a school, working to fit everything on the site in a well-ordered pattern. They were high school students interested in architecture and design, learning firsthand some of the things architects and engineers have to consider when designing a school. Site planning was just one of the opportunities Montgomery County public school students, mostly high school juniors, had while participating in workplace scenarios at the 13th annual Young Professionals Conference on
Thursday at the Universities at Shady Grove in Rockville. One of the conference sponsors, the Montgomery County Business Roundtable for Education, “is all about connecting students and the outside world,” said Nikki Malcolm, program manager for the group. “These students are on a chosen career pathway and we bring them businesses from the community.” The conference was also sponsored by Montgomery County Public Schools, the Universities at Shady Grove and Montgomery College. Participants also spent time learning from businesses that included law, teaching, finance, information technology, biosciences, broadcast media and hospitality, all career pathways programs offered in county high schools. It was an opportunity for the students to ask questions of professionals in a field they might pursue, learn about the education required and the
variety of experiences each profession offers. Hanna Berhane, a junior at Wheaton High School, said she is studying both aerospace engineering and digital engineering this year. She isn’t sure about her future career but found the presentation by architects from Grimm and Parker Architects in Calverton, interesting. “It was really interactive,” she said. “I liked that they gave us a challenge to work on.” The event was organized like a real business conference, Malcolm said, with a keynote speaker, break-out sessions and a networking lunch. Thomas Perry, general manager of the Courtyard by Marriott Convention Center in Washington, D.C., was the keynote speaker, encouraging the students to make the most of their time and giving a few words of advice while sharing his own story. “It’s important for you all to understand you have
to work hard,” he said. “The person who will have the most success is the person who makes the most of the 86,400 seconds in the day.” He also told the students that they would only be as good as the people they spent their time with and encouraged them to find older people to learn from. “If you’re 16 years old, you cannot learn everything about life from another 16-year-old,” he said. “If you want to learn about life, find someone ten years older than you who is doing what you want to do and hang out with them.” Fredy Calderon, a senior at Northwood High School in Silver Spring, said he was impressed by Perry’s talk and thought it was a great way to start the conference. He wants to pursue a career in law. Lawyers get incomplete information and have to fill in the blanks, he said, “I find it interesting,” he said, “That’s what I like to do.”
Wootton High School students will perform the Broadway musical “Hairspray” at 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday; at 2 p.m. Sunday; at 7:30 p.m. April 4 and 5; and at 2 p.m. April 6. The school is at 2100 Wootton Parkway, Rockville. More than 150 students, including actors, musicians and crew, along with a team of teachers and community members, are involved in presenting “Hairspray,” set in Baltimore in the 1960s. “It’s one of the rare shows that has a tremendous amount of featured roles and the music is just so good,” said director Jessica Speck. “You cannot get away from how great this music is. It’s so catchy.” Tickets, at $10 for general admission and $15 for reserved seating, can be purchased at schooltix. org/wootton. For more information, call 301-279-8550.
Nursery school director celebrates 25 years Karen Gerton lives in a time warp of sorts. As director of B’nai Israel Congregation’s Schilit Nursery School for the last 25 years, she says that though she gets older, the kids do not. She always works with preschoolers ages 15 months through 5 years. “The kids are the same. They come in with smiles and are happy and love to be here,” Gerton said. B’nai Israel honored Gerton with a March 8 celebration attended by more than 350 people that included entertainment by comedian Kevin Meaney. “It was an overwhelming experience,” Gerton said of the celebration. “ My whole life converged.” Gerton said the biggest surprise of the evening was the people who came representing families from her 25 years at the school. She started at the Rockville nursery school in 1989, teaching
OVERCROWDED SCHOOLS Clarksburg High School
3-year-olds three days a week. After seven years, the director retired and she applied for the job because she said it was something she wanted to do eventually and she didn’t know when the opportunity would come up again. When she took over, there were 55 children in the program, all in half-day classes. Now there are 120 students in programs ranging from parentchild classes to pre-K classes for 4- and 5-year-olds. The school, Gerton said, is a place of community for the students and their parents. “It’s a community where [parents] meet people and establish friendships,” she said. “A common theme is they met friends and stayed friends. It warms my heart when people say that.” After 25 years, Gerton said she has no plans to retire. The celebration in her honor is an example of why she stays. “It was wonderful,” she said, “It touched my heart. That’s why I don’t leave. As much as I love being here, they love me too.”
Registration underway for pre-K, Head Start Registration has begun for Montgomery County Public Schools prekindergarten and Head Start classes for the 2014-15 school year. The programs are for incomeeligible children who will be 4 by Sept. 1. They provide services such as preschool education, health and social services, and parent engagement for lowincome families, including those whose children have disabilities. Limited Head Start openings also are available at Montgomery College’s Rockville campus for parents receiving Working Parents Assistance or Purchase of Care child care subsidies. These classes are open to children who turn 3 or 4 by Sept. 1. Walk-in applications are accepted from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Thursday at the Rocking Horse Road Center, 4910 Macon Road, Room 141, Rockville. Parents also can register their children at other community locations.
CLARKSBURG
n Each week, The Gazette will feature a county school by the numbers, giving a glimpse at how local schools are dealing with overcrowded conditions.
Number of students:
1,958
Current student capacity:
Percent over capacity:
Number of students overcapacity:
Number of school’s portable classrooms:
1,638 320 19.5 11 338 1995 25.2 26.2 2006 26.7 24.7
(Grades 9-12)
English
PRINCIPAL’S
TAKE
Other
MCPS average high school class size:
Student/ instructional staff ratio:
13.1
MCPS average high school student/ instructional staff ratio:
11.6
Year school was built
English
Other
Year of last renovation/modernization
Principal James Koutsos said the school’s 11 portable classrooms have created a larger building footprint. “We have a bit more base to kind of monitor and supervise,” he said. Overall, Koutsos said, the school has adjusted well to the extra students. Hallways and stairwells can accommodate students, he said, and the added enrollment has not affected extracurricular groups, some of which have used off-campus sites to meet prior to the student population growth. With more students, Koutsos said, there’s “more diversity, more variety, more opportunity.” An addition to the school is slated for completion by August 2015, he said. DATA FOR 2013-14 SCHOOL YEAR SOURCE: MONTGOMERY COUNTY PUBLIC SCHOOLS
1910191
School’s average class size:
Total MCPS portable classrooms:
1910153
1910724
1910192