In the following letter to Maryland State Superintendent of Schools Nancy Grasmick, a former educator requests an independent investigation into Drama Therapy, the controversial drama production shown to students at Havre de Grace High School at a school-wide assembly held in early December, 2009. The letter to Dr. Grasmick generated a response of sorts. More on that in a minute. First, here’s the letter from Churchville resident, Barbara Falukner-Davis.
Ms. Faulkner-Davis told The Dagger that she first heard about Drama Therapy from an upset friend who is a parent in the Havre de Grace district. Faulkner-Davis is not a parent herself; she says she got involved as a former educator, a taxpayer and a concerned citizen. She says she isn’t trying to get anyone fired, but Faulkner-Davis thinks Drama Therapy should not be shown during the school day and that program’s therapeutic efforts were inappropriate. After viewing a ...Continue Reading
Legislative Updates on the education bills under consideration in the Maryland General Assembly are coming fast and furious now. A second set of updates was presented to the Harford County Board of Education by the schools’ governmental liaison Kathy Carmello, at a business meeting held Monday, February 22 in Bel Air. This time around, Harford School Board Member John Smilko raised the possibility of intrigue among the sundry list of legislative initiatives for the 2010 session.
Background: After first asserting that legislative changes were not needed for Maryland to win a chunk of the $4 billion federal, Race to the Top money, Governor Martin O’Malley has now requested changes geared toward getting the loot in the proposed Education Reform Act of 2010. The legislation extends the probationary period from 2 to 3 years before new teachers can earn tenure; requires that student outcomes be a ...Continue Reading
The Harford County Education Association has dropped a grievance that was filed with Harford County Public Schools Superintendent Robert Tomback over the Association’s use of the schools’ e-mail system. Responding to an inquiry from The Dagger, HCEA President Randy Cerveny said that his HCPS e-mail account was restored on Monday, February 22, 2010 and that the Association’s grievance had been withdrawn.
Cerveny’s e-mail account was disabled by Harford County Public Schools on January 12, after Cerveny sent e-mails to HCEA members urging them to attend school board budget hearings. In response to the e-mail shut-down, Cerveny wrote in a letter to members that HCPS claimed the e-mails were in violation of the Negotiated Agreement between the Association and the School Board. Cerveny disagreed, citing an opinion from the Maryland State Education Association’s legal department. Cerveny’s letter went on to say that a grievance had been filed on January 20, 2010.
The 2010 Maryland General Assembly session is just about to the mid-point, and well over a hundred bills relating to schools and their employees have been filed for legislators to consider. Of course, not every bill portends big changes to the state of education in the State, but some do. And they’re worth noting while there’s still time to rally support or stamp them out, depending on your point of view.
To that end, a Legislative Update presented to the Harford County Board of Education by the school system’s governmental relations liaison Kathy Carmello, recently highlighted a number of education bills. The school board voted to support some, oppose others, and some were presented for informational purposes only.
Here are a few of those bills worth watching, followed by their currently scheduled hearing dates. In lieu of attending a hearing, letters and e-mails can also be sent directly to ...Continue Reading
Harford County Public Schools prepared for the worst, and now the worst has happened.
Snowfall in late December combined with back-to-back blizzards in February have used up all six of the snow days built into the school calendar, meaning that students will now be in class on March 31 and April 1, delaying the start of spring vacation until April 2, Good Friday. Students will also be in school for at least four additional days in June, making June 15 the last day for students in the 2009-10 school year.
Teachers’ professional development days planned for March 31 and April 1 may be rescheduled to the end of the school year, according to the school calendar, making June 18 the new last day of school for teachers.
Additional snow days could add even more days to the end of the school year. But if further school closings are necessary after Feb. 11, ...Continue Reading
At an unusual and perhaps unprecedented meeting called by the Harford Delegation to discuss a controversial high school program known as “Drama Therapy”, Harford Schools Superintendent Robert Tomback acknowledged for the first time that mistakes had been made with the Drama Therapy program presented at a Havre de Grace High School assembly on December 4, 2009.
Dr. Tomback later told The Dagger that Drama Therapy was still under an internal investigation, involving what he called a “personnel matter that is being addressed” Tomback wouldn’t comment further, citing the negotiated agreement with school employees.
Drama Therapy is a drama production, formerly promoted by Harford County Schools and jointly developed by teachers and counselors at the Havre de Grace High, to help teens deal with serious issues. Drama Therapy has been presented in each of the past four years, but much of the content is written by students ...Continue Reading
The school rule known as “No Pass/No Play” is designed to motivate high school students to pass every class, or be barred from school-sponsored extracurricular activities. “No pass” means no football, no drama, no nothing, for students with failing grades.
The rule sends some powerful messages:
Academics come first.
Failure has consequences.
Don’t mess with Texas. No kidding.
Texas was the first state to enact No Pass/No Play into law, based on recommendations from a 1984 commission on school reform led by Dallas businessman H. Ross Perot.
Texas later amended their rule, exempting some high level classes from “no pass”, and cutting the “no play” period to 3 weeks – just in time to get a player back on the field during football season.
But No Pass/No Play spread like wildfire from Texas to the rest of the nation. Sixteen states have No pass/No play rules and by 2007, a total of 32 states had some ...Continue Reading
The property tax assessment process in Maryland is broken, and a task force will find ways to fix it. That’s the thinking behind proposed legislation getting a push from elected officials and tax-payer advocates in Harford County.
With Senator Barry Glassman and Delegate H. Wayne Norman as lead sponsors in the State Senate and House of Delegates respectively, identical bills entitled: “Task Force to Review Property Tax Assessment Procedure and the Assessment Appeals Process.” were recently cross-filed in the Maryland General Assembly.
The co-sponsors of the House bill, HB 204, include every member of the Harford Delegation.
Here’s how Delegate Norman explained the purpose of the task force bill in a letter to his colleagues:
“Under HB 204, the task force would be comprised of Maryland residents with substantive and professional experience in property evaluations. The task force members also would represent all parts of Maryland and have firsthand knowledge about ...Continue Reading
The Dagger has obtained the following memo to the members of the Harford County Education Association from President Randy Cerveny, outlining the events leading up to the filing of a grievance over the Association’s use of the Harford County Public Schools e-mail system. The grievance was filed by the HCEA with Harford Schools Superintendent Robert Tomback on January 20, 2010. According to Cerveny, Superintendent Tomback has ten days to respond to the filing.
In the memo, HCEA President Cerveny writes that he was notified by the school system on the morning of January 11 that e-mails he sent to HCEA members regarding upcoming board meetings were considered “an abuse of the contractual agreement” between the HCEA and the board of education. Cerveny was instructed not to send any future e-mails without first getting approval for “appropriate content.”
The memo doesn’t offer details of the alleged abuses or discuss the content ...Continue Reading
In the following letter dated January 21, 2010, Havre de Grace High School Principal Patricia Walling invites parents to see a video of the controversial production known as Drama Therapy and outlines a four-point action plan being implemented for future productions.
Drama Therapy is a changing series of short plays which have been presented by students at Havre de Grace High since 2007. The plays often deal with serious topics including incest, abortion, teen suicide, recovered memory and substance abuse.
Curiously, an envelope containing Principal Walling’s letter to the parents and guardians of Havre de Grace High School students shows neither a return address nor any other indication that the letter was sent from the school. The screening of Drama Therapy, planned for Wednesday, January 27, at 7 p.m. in the school auditorium, was not noted on the calendar posted on the school’s web site as of Sunday, January 24.
