THE GAZETTE
Page A-4
Wednesday, April 9, 2014 p
AROUND THE COUNTY
Primping for the prom n
150 shop at Bethesda-Chevy Chase’s Once Upon a Prom dress giveaway BY
(From left) Senior Peyton Silver, freshman Rebecca Leggett and eighth-grader Tory Silver help senior Emnet Negussie size up a prom dress at the BethesdaChevy Chase High School dress giveaway on Thursday.
SHEMAIAH ELLIS
SPECIAL TO THE GAZETTE
Finding that perfect prom dress is difficult. Getting one when you’re strapped for cash is nearly impossible. In hopes of easing some of that burden, Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School on Thursday hosted its fourth annual “Once Upon a Prom” dress giveaway. Organized by school parent Wendy Silver of Bethesda four years ago, the program aims to provide prom dresses to less-privileged girls, so they have a chance to feel special on prom night. “Compared to previous years, we saw a spike in attendance, which is wonderful because we really tried to get the word out,” Silver said. “It’s good to know that more of the community is hearing about the event.” About 150 people came to this year’s dress giveaway in the school’s dance studio, including mothers and friends of girls looking for their perfect gown. The giveaway attracted girls from surrounding high schools such as Albert Einstein in Kensington and John F. Kennedy in Silver Spring and some from as far away as Howard County, Silver said. The number was about double that of last year and many more than the first year, when only 20 came, Silver said. “The most rewarding part is seeing the smiles on girls’ faces after they try on a dress that suits them,” she said. “That’s magical.” Silver gets dresses from individual donations and many from Ashley Taylor, a Washington, D.C., socialite who started the original “Once Upon a Prom” organization.
DAN GROSS/THE GAZETTE
“Last year we got a number of dresses from a retailer who was going retail to online,” she said. “I have about 150 dresses stored in my basement.” This year she added a raffle to the event, giving away certificates for manicures, pedicures, “blowouts” from Drybar in Bethesda, and other gifts and services. Bethesda-Chevy Chase seniors Peyton Silver and Chloe Druskin, both 17, co-presidents of Once Upon A Prom this year, plan to pass the torch to Silver’s younger sister, Madison, a freshman. “I hope to keep the club vibrant and alive within B-CC and the community. I’m glad I’ve found a plan to keep it going in the years to come,” Wendy Silver said.
Other schools in the county offer low-cost prom dresses to their students and nearby community. Northwest High School in Germantown held its annual Cinderella’s Closet Prom Dress sale Friday. Donated dresses were sold for $20, with proceeds going to community services through the school’s Northwest Ambassadors. About 60 dresses were sold Friday and the school plans to host a second sale from 2:30 to 5 p.m. May 2. Paint Branch High School in Burtonsville hosted a drive named Project Prom, also Friday, giving the option of 56 dresses for girls to choose from for $10. Organizers from Paint Branch were not available for comment on their program.
Students take to the streets to close gap n
Group seeks to highlight issue, program efforts BY
LINDSAY A. POWERS STAFF WRITER
A group of Montgomery County students is marching to close the achievement gap — and it wants everyone to join in. The roughly 20 students organizing the March to Close the Gap hail from Minority Scholars Programs at about 10 high schools around the county. As leaders and members of the program aimed at closing the gap, the students have planned the march as a platform to share their work and direct attention and support to the issue they say is prevalent but sometimes unknown. The march on April 27 will take its participants from the Carver Educational Services Center to the Montgomery County District Court in Rockville. Performance gaps between student groups — especially those between black and Latino students, and their white and Asian peers — remain a long-standing issue for Montgomery County Public Schools. With a little more than three
weeks left to plan and recruit participants for the march, the students and their teachers in the program met at Clarksburg High School on April 2 to discuss a range of issues, including where they stood cultivating interest in the event from their peers and others. Gabriella Bianchi, a 16-year-old sophomore at WoottonHigh School in Rockville, said after the meeting her school has a small percentage of minority students and many of her friends aren’t aware of the achievement gap. “It just doesn’t make sense to them because at our school, the problem, socially, isn’t a very big issue,” said Bianchi, a co-leader of Wootton’s Minority Scholars Program. To raise support at Wootton — where the idea of the march originated — Bianchi said she and others had reached out to a range of student groups and were working toward a spot on the school’s announcements and sending information home to students’ families. She said the march has received “good support so far” at the school, but there was more work for them to do in the next few weeks. “We don’t have as much support as we wish we had,” Bianchi said.
Mariam Jalloh-Jamboria, a senior at Clarksburg High School who leads its Minority Scholars Program, said she has emailed area churches and mosques and talked to members of other groups she’s involved in. “Anything that I have my foot in is where I’m promoting the march,” she said. Jalloh-Jamboria, 17, said she has learned that performance gaps exist beyond those found between students of different races. Gaps also appear along the lines of socioeconomic status and sexual orientation, she said. In her outreach, she said, she has told others that, whether they are a minority student or not, the gap and the Minority Scholars Program’s work affects them. Skylar Mitchell, a junior at Walt Whitman, joined the efforts to organize the march after hearing about the event from Michael Williams, a Minority Scholars Program coordinator and a fellow member of the county school system’s African American Student Achievement Action Group. Mitchell said she has not seen many other minority students in her advanced placement and honors courses.
She said, from her experience, she thinks minority students too often don’t strive for academic success. “If we’re not all exceeding at the same rate for whatever reason, there’s a problem, and that’s something that needs to be addressed,” she said. Williams, a teacher and the Minority Scholars Program coordinator at Walter Johnson High School in Bethesda, said the program coordinators involved in the march’s planning knew the students were “on to something” when they raised the idea of a march. The march, he said, will serve to raise awareness and garner support from the community for efforts to close the gap. Vilma Najera, a foreign language resource teacher and the Minority Scholars Program coordinator at Clarksburg High, said she thinks the issue has escaped many county students. “I think a lot of kids don’t get it, and I think it’s just because it’s not a conversation a lot of kids are having,” she said. lpowers@gazette.net
InBrief Transit Advisory Group seeks members The Montgomery County Department of Transportation is seeking 12 regular passengers of the county’s Ride On bus system to serve on its Transit Advisory Group. Those interested should email, fax or send a letter to the agency containing the following information: • Name, home address, city, state and zip code. • Day/evening telephone numbers. • Email address. • Length of time using Ride On. • Frequency of using Ride On. • The contributions you hope to provide to the Transit Advisory Group. • Personal or professional background information. Email the information to mcdot.tag@montgomerycountymd.gov, fax to 240-777-5801 or mail to Division of Transit Services, Transit Advisory Group, 101 Monroe St., 5th Floor, Rockville, MD 20850. Applications will be accepted through Tuesday. For more information, montgomerycountymd.gov/dot-transit and click on current events or call 240-777-5800.
POLICE BLOTTER
Complete report at www.gazette.net The following is a summary of incidents in the Potomac area to which Montgomery County police responded recently. The words “arrested” and “charged” do not imply guilt. This information was provided by the county.
Auto theft • On March 26 between midnight and 6:15 a.m. on 1st Street, Rockville. Robbery • On March 23 at 12:45 p.m. at Vandegrift Avenue and Lemay Road, Rockville. The subjects threatened the victim with a weapon and took property. • On March 23 at 4:30 p.m. at Halpine Road and Ardennes Avenue, Rockville. The subjects forcefully took property from the victim and fled. Sexual assault • On March 22 at 6 p.m. in the 3600 block of Littledale Road, Kensington. The subject is known to the victim. Aggravated assault • On March 22 in the 8000 block of Cindy Lane, Bethesda. The subject is known to the victim. • On March 22 at noon in the 9200 block of Marseille Drive, Potomac. The subjects are known to the victim. Commercial burglary • On March 23 at 4:40 a.m. at Mobil Gas, 5054 River Road, Bethesda. Forced entry, took property. • On March 23 at 5:18 a.m. at Exxon, 6100 MacArthur Blvd., Potomac. Forced entry, took property. Residential burglary • 4200 block of East-West Highway, Chevy Chase, at 11:30 a.m. March 20. Attempted forced entry, took nothing. • 11200 block of South Glen Road, Rockville, between 12:15 and 2:40 p.m. March 21. Forced entry, took property. Theft • On March 18 at 7 p.m. at a construction site in the 5400 block of Albia Road, Bethesda. • On March 18 or 19 in the 11700 block of Parklawn Drive, Rockville. Took items from outside the residence. • On March 21 or 22 at Next Day Blinds, 12204 Rockville Pike, Rockville. • Between 6:30 p.m. March 21 and 10:30 a.m. March 22 outside of Video and Film Solutions, 5800 Arundel Ave., Rockville. • On March 21 or 24 outside of Pier One Imports, 12137 Rockville Pike, North Bethesda. • On March 28 at a construction site at 16045 Shady Grove Road, Rockville.
Democratic executive candidates debate budget at forum Leggett fires back at attacks on transit center n
BY RYAN MARSHALL STAFF WRITER
Democratic county executive candidates sparred over budgetary issues at a forum Sunday in Silver Spring. Councilman Philip M. Andrews (D-Dist. 3) of Gaithersburg said the county government should not fund the public school system above the amount required by state funding minimums, as a way to con-
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trol county spending. Current County Executive Isiah Leggett said staying at socalled maintenance of effort for any extended period of time would be a “recipe for disaster” by lowering the quality of the county’s school system. Former County Executive Douglas M. Duncan criticized the law for providing disincentives for counties to fund more than the required amount because they’ll have to provide at least the new amount from the next year and in future years. The Womans Democratic Club of Montgomery County
hosted the forum. Republican candidate Jim Shalleck of Montgomery Village was not at the debate, and said he had not been invited to participate. Leggett’s proposed fiscal 2015 operating budget provides funding for schools at about $26 million above the maintenance of effort level. Leggett said he would love to see the law changed, but funding schools only at the basic level until it is wouldn’t provide the school system’s current students with the resources they need, Leggett said. Andrews said while edu-
cation is an important service that the county provides, so are libraries, fire, police and other items that get crowded out of the budget by education spending. Duncan promised as executive to work with the county’s delegation to the General Assembly, the County Council and the school board to change the law so it rewards counties for providing increased funding. Duncan continued his attacks on Leggett for the troubled Silver Spring Transit Center project, asking when the facility will open, what it will cost and if it will be safe.
He accused Leggett of forming a secret committee to prepare a report on the longdelayed project in downtown Silver Spring. The comment drew a heated response from Leggett, who repeated his answer from earlier events that the facility will open when it is determined to be safe. “All this talk about some secret commission. What are you talking about?” Leggett asked. Andrews also reprised one of his favorite lines about the transit center, pointing out that both Duncan and Leggett have had
opportunities to get the facility open as county executive and have failed to do so. He said perhaps Duncan could get some information on when the transit center will open from the project’s general contractor Foulger-Pratt, who had done some consulting work for Duncan. Duncan used the forum to promote his “Leadership In Action” plan. The plan includes policy proposals on a variety of issues, including education, job creation, infrastructure and the environment.