Classroom

Abby Turner was born to teach. Her first-grade classroom was a beehive of activity, students always busy and always on task. Abby flitted through her classroom like a ballerina, stopping to give help when help was needed, giving every student positive attention. One day when her class was drawing pictures of things they liked, Abby saw that one child's work was a purple cat. Abby said, "Margaret, I never saw a purple cat. " Margaret's reply was, "I got one. " "Oh," Abby said, "Would you bring it to school so that I could see it?"

The best teachers would become coaches and mentors for rookie educators and veterans who need help with their technique, under a program now being considered for Montgomery County, Md. But in the midst of all the praise the idea is receiving, no one seems to be asking this question: Is it a good idea to pull the best teachers out of the classroom? School board managers and teachers association leaders seem to think so, telling The Washington Post that the program is "cutting edge" and that it could be "the most important thing that happens to the Montgomery County public schools in the next year or two. " The program would work in this way: Teachers judged as "exemplary" would be trained to evaluate and mentor an estimated 800 to 1,000 new teachers hired in Montgomery County each year, as well as long-time teachers found to be in need of help.

Mike Williams recalls having only one black, male teacher during his K-12 education in Montgomery County, Md. “I felt a bit isolated. That's coming from me, and I was fairly popular. I was an athlete,” said Williams, 43, now a social studies teacher at Walter Johnson High School in Bethesda, Md. He is among the 3.7 percent of black, male teachers in Maryland Public Schools teaching a student body that is nearly 18 percent black and male. The state continues to recruit a teaching corps to try to accurately reflect its student population because experts say it's good for students to be taught by a diverse faculty.

Grants to teachers in Franklin County public schools will be awarded to encourage the innovative use of technology in kindergarten through 12th grade. The Greater Chambersburg Chamber Foundation, an affiliate of the Greater Chambersburg Chamber of Commerce, is offering the Innovative Technology Challenge Grants to educators in all six school districts. The deadline for applications is June 28. Applicants will be evaluated based on three key criteria: innovation, value added to curriculum and advanced academics.

Lincolnshire Elementary School in Halfway will receive nearly $900 in May for collecting nearly 9,000 box tops coupons from the end of December through March 1 to send to the Box Tops for Education program. Gail Vaughn, the program's fundraising coordinator for the school, said this makes the school's total for the year $2,188 after collecting box tops through mid-October as well. “Our school alone since we started collecting them in 2004 has raised $19,570,” she said. Teachers collect the box tops, clipped from qualifying products, and twice a year send them to Vaughn, who submits them to the program.

On Nov. 9, seven area Christian schools came together for a professional development training day. The schools present were Broadfording Christian Academy, Grace Academy, Shalom Christian Academy, Heritage Academy, Cumberland Valley Christian School, Adams County Christian School and New Life Christian Academy.  A total of 140 classroom educators participated in the day's events. The presenter for the day was Pat Eger from Dover, Pa. Eger has a 30-year plus career in education.

At the start of the school year, Western Heights Middle School sixth-grader Andrea Makle said she was asking her ancient-history teacher a lot of questions because, sitting in the back of the class, she had difficulty hearing him. Next door in Laurie Atwell's geography class, seventh-grader Nadia Metz was having similar problems hearing Atwell even though Nadia sat in the front of the class. These days teachers often walk around their classrooms while speaking, and for these two classrooms any hearing issues are compounded during lunch.

A multi-classroom expansion project at the University System of Maryland at Hagerstown should be ready for students to use next month. USMH Executive Director Mark Halsey told about 55 people Wednesday during a Hagerstown-Washington County Chamber of Commerce breakfast that the university has been building new classrooms at the former CVS pharmacy at 60 W. Washington St. to accommodate growth. “It's beginning to come together,” Halsey said of the project. “We're hoping for occupancy in not too many more days.

The school year begins Wednesday for Washington County Public Schools' projected 22,195 students and 1,682 teachers. Many of those teachers are classroom teachers, several of whom spent the early part of this week getting training and preparing their classrooms for the first day. For some, that meant moving into a new classroom. With the help of his daughter, Emily, 15, Smithsburg High teacher Brian Getz was still moving into his classroom Monday. The high school got new windows this summer, then the floors were waxed, and some teachers were moving into new classrooms.

Roseanne Horst said she never expected to be an emotional mom when the time came to send her children to school. But she was wrong. The mother of three said when the time came for her children, Tyler, now 11, Lindsey, 9, and Cole, 6, to leave home for the classroom at Heritage Academy, west of Hagerstown, she said she had to keep her emotions in check and give her children the support they needed to start a new chapter in their lives. “The biggest thing is that they're getting older,” she said during a telephone interview from her home near Clear Spring while she peeled fresh peaches.

It was the opportunity to move her classroom to an outdoor, hands-on setting that prompted North Hagerstown High School teacher Wendy Fraker to seek grants for an overnight learning experience at Catoctin Mountain Park in Thurmont, Md., in the fall.  Fifty-five students in her International Baccalaureate biology and IB physics classes traveled Oct. 19 and 20, 2011, to Camp Greentop for the experience. Fraker began writing the grant proposal in April 2011, with the funding covering food, camp rental, and transportation to and from the camp.

Christina Hammer-Atkins would be the first to say that she is rarely ever rendered speechless, but she was Wednesday night. Hammer-Atkins was named the 2012-13 Washington County Teacher of the Year before a crowd of about 200 people, including many of her colleagues, at the annual recognition dinner at Fountain Head Country Club in Hagerstown. The second-grade teacher from Boonsboro Elementary School was selected out of five finalists for the prestigious award, which is sponsored each year by the Hagerstown-Washington County Chamber of Commerce Foundation.