READING HEROES Libraries’ summer program underway. A-6
NEWS: Largent’s Restaurant and Bar in the Kentlands to be rebranded midsummer. A-3
The Gazette GAITHERSBURG | MONTGOMERY VILLAGE
SPORTS: Quince Orchard swimmer learns what can happen when you pay attention. B-1
DA I LY U P DAT E S AT G A Z E T T E . N E T
Wednesday, June 10, 2015
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Superintendent suggests cuts to fill budget gap
Round of applause for Gaithersburg Class of 2015
Proposal includes eliminating about 340 school-based positions n
BY
LINDSAY A. POWERS STAFF WRITER
TOM FEDOR/THE GAZETTE
Graduate Damian Granados-Masis applauds the class sponsor during the Gaithersburg High School commencement on Friday afternoon at DAR Constitution Hall in Washington, D.C. Gaithersburg graduated 478 students. Speakers included senior class sponsor Brett Morales and senior class president Sophie Yang, with Yang presenting the farewell address. Guest speaker was Freeman A. Hrabowski III, president of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.
Man convicted in stabbing death BY
VIRGINIA TERHUNE STAFF WRITER
A jury found a North Potomac man guilty of firstdegree murder Friday in the stabbing death of a perceived
rival over the attentions of a young woman. Pavel Ivanov, 25, was convicted of killing Bryan Robert Hall, 22, after meeting in Green Park in Gaithersburg. Ivanov, who has no prior convictions, is scheduled for sentencing on Aug. 14. According to prosecutors, Ivanov and a young woman he was dating were together at
a party on July 3, 2014, when Hall began texting the woman about getting together later that evening, said prosecutor Senior Assistant State’s Attorney Kathy Knight on Friday. A landscaper who graduated from Northwest High School in Germantown in 2010, Hall had dated the woman in middle school and still saw her on an occasional basis, accord-
ing to prosecutors. Ivanov and the woman agreed to meet Hall in the park near Curry Ford Lane about 2:20 a.m., Knight said. “I think she thought they would talk like adults,” Knight said. During the encounter, Ivanov pushed Hall in the chest, egging him on to fight, and also
A farewell surprise for retiring staff at Fields Road Elementary Assembly held in honor of principal, colleagues
n
BY
SAMANTHA SCHMIEDER STAFF WRITER
As the school year comes to an end, students and staff at Fields Road Elementary School in Gaithersburg wanted to make sure that their retirees knew they would be greatly missed by surprising them with a celebratory assembly. Principal Kathy Rupp, third grade teacher Cathy Necciai and assistant principal Lisa Thomas all will retire this year after serving Montgomery County Public Schools for a combined total of more than 100 years. Rupp has been principal
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at Fields Road for 13 years and with the county for 35 years as a classroom teacher and art teacher before moving into administration. Necciai has been with Fields Road for 37 years as a first, second and, since 1999, third grade teacher. Though Thomas has only been with Fields Road for one year, she served the county for 31 years. Before coming to Fields Road Elementary School, Thomas was the principal at Burnt Mills Elementary School in Silver Spring for 10 years. She decided to “transition slowly out” of the school system by leaving her long-term principal position at Burnt Mills for the assistant principal job at Fields Road. Throughout their years with MCPS, the retirees have seen
many changes within the system as well as in education itself. “For me, the most exciting thing is this new curriculum and it’s teaching children to be thinkers,” Rupp said. She explained that the county excelled at teaching children facts, but now it’s more than that because it’s teaching them the problem solving skills that are necessary for them to succeed in middle and high school as well as in the real world. Thomas said that the biggest change she has seen over the last 31 years is that in addition to teaching and learning, administrators have also become more focused on security and keeping
See RETIRING, Page A-10
A&E
HEAVY SEAS Baltimore’s Clipper City Brewing is the second-largest brewery in Maryland and is celebrating its 20th anniversary.
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See DEATH, Page A-10
See CUTS, Page A-10
World, meet the Watkins Mill grads
DAN GROSS/THE GAZETTE
Graduate Isatu Mansaray gets her diploma from Watkins Mill High School principal Scott Murphy during commencement at DAR Constitution Hall on Tuesday. Watkins Mill graduated 340 students. Student speakers included Tiyah Koney and senior class president Frances Moyonero. The ceremony also featured student bagpiper Jacob Abbot and soloist Robert Duncan. The guest speaker was Watkins Mill teacher (and alum) Jody Tyler.
Volume 28, No. 23 Two sections, 28 Pages Copyright © 2015 The Gazette
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RECYCLE
GAZ LADIESNIGHTOUT FRONT
Fight started over woman, led to vicious knife attack n
Interim Superintendent Larry A. Bowers put forward on Tuesday a plan to cut millions from Montgomery County Public Schools’ fiscal 2016 operating budget to align it with countyapproved funding. To help fill a $53 million budget gap, Bowers recommended the district eliminate about 340 full-time-equivalent school employee positions, not buy more Chromebook laptops next fiscal year and delay by a couple of weeks employee compensation increases. The county school board will vote on a final budget on June 16. Board members will consider at the same meeting whether to include Bowers’ changes. The board faces a $2.32 billion operating budget for fiscal 2016 that the Montgomery County Council approved. The amount leaves the district with about $53 million less than what the board asked for, according to district officials. “There are no easy answers when you have to make a budget cut of this size, especially in an organization like MCPS, where 90 percent of our budget goes toward paying for the people who do the important work every day,” Bowers said in a school
system press release Tuesday. Bowers recommended that the district eliminate more than 340 school employee positions, including teacher, media specialist and instructional data specialist positions. In March, he held back about 370 such positions because of a gloomy budget outlook. His recent proposed reduction would trigger class-size increases at all county schools, though less so at schools with higher percentages of students who receive free or reducedprice meals, an indication of poverty, according to Dana Tofig, a school system spokesman. The school-based positions, combined with an earlier cut of about 40 central office positions, marks a $25.5 million shift to fill the gap, according to the release. The proposal would restore about 30 positions Bowers had held back tied to working with special education and English for Speakers of Other Languages students. Bowers also proposed that the school system not purchase more Chromebook laptops next fiscal year, delaying a technology initiative. The system had planned to spend about $3 million on the laptops in fiscal 2016, after adding laptops and other devices to some classrooms this year. Under Bowers’ plan, the district’s employees would get compensation increases in October, but one pay period later than scheduled. The change
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