Blair building services workers have been breaking county regulations by discarding the majority of the recyclables collected in the school along with the trash. Building services workers contended that their contract does not obligate them to recycle and that students must transport the recycling to avoid overburdening the staff.
Last year, the Montgomery County Board of Education (BOE) implemented a new grading policy in all middle and elementary schools allowing students to retake assignments that were not tests or projects and forbidding teachers from grading work for completion. An improved version of this policy has been employed in high schools countywide this year, fixing many of last year's problems. Still, the BOE must continue with reforms.
Her arm blurred by the speed of her stroke, sophomore Helen Chen sends a birdie rocketing over the net as freshman Billy Huang responds with ease, whipping his arm around and sending it back with equally vicious speed. Moments after the end of eighth period, the action is already intense at Badminton Club in the auxiliary gym, one of several Blair groups that feature sports that are far from mainstream in America.
Dozens of dilapidated schools waiting years to be renovated. A budget that has been dried out for decades. Taxes that continually increase because of budget issues. Each of these crises has two things in common - each has plagued the state of Maryland for years, and each can finally be resolved if slot machines are introduced.
An invisible skate carves a pristine, icy surface, signaling the opening of Tim Fywell's "Ice Princess," the latest Disney success to hit the big screen nationwide.
As 5B lunch ends, junior Minh-Phuong Huynh-Le struggles towards room 172. She has been feeling sick all day and when she arrives, Huynh-Le realizes that she is too ill to attend class and asks her teacher to go to the health room, not even thinking to request a pass. One long trek across the school later, she enters the health room, only to be turned away because she lacks the pass required for admission.
Junior Ryan Ly may have to deal with a new highway all too close to his backyard. The Intercounty Connector (ICC), a proposed highway planned to decrease traffic on county roads, will lie within feet of many Blazers' homes, devaluing properties and causing air and noise pollution. Unfortunately, the ICC will solve no traffic problems; instead, it will destroy the environment and cost billions of dollars in the process.
Sword-and-sandal epics reached a new low with the release of Oliver Stone's latest movie, Alexander. Though the film accurately depicts the imperialistic Macedonian king's life, the director obviously forgot a few basics, like developing the plot and keeping the audience awake.
Blair, already a seriously overcrowded high school, is seeing its scheduling problems compounded thanks to the Interagency Coordinating Board (ICB), a 12-member committee that schedules all events taking place in any County-owned building. Despite their authoritative positions, this group of County officials is out of touch with school communities and affairs and thereby creates, not solves, problems in school scheduling.
A plume of acrid smoke billows skyward from a monstrous tear in the World Trade Center, signaling the premature death of thousands. A gaping hole and a collapsed school roof mark the tomb of hundreds of Russians, many of them children, who are victims of just one in a series of massive terrorist attacks spanning the globe.