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SILVER ANNIVERSARY Theater marks 75th with free showing of first movie. A-13
The Gazette GAITHERSBURG | MONTGOMERY VILLAGE
DAILY UPDATES ONLINE www.gazette.net
Wednesday, September 11, 2013
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School system studies rules on teacher moves Reassignment after sex accusations could be rare
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BY
LINDSAY A. POWERS STAFF WRITER
When a teacher has been accused of inappropriate behavior with a student, that teacher could wind up in a new school. Montgomery County Public Schools is considering new rules that would make such reassignments less likely in cases of “a sexual nature,” said chief operating officer Larry Bowers. The school system is examining its policy for reassigning teachers and other employees as it works to improve its ability to track incidents of employee behavior, he said. The school system recently studied several cases involving employees who engaged in inappropriate behavior with students over extended periods of time, leading
GREG DOHLER/THE GAZETTE
A store employee prepares the checkout area Tuesday for Sunday’s opening at the new Wegmans supermarket in Germantown.
Supermarket WARS KEVIN JAMES SHAY STAFF WRITER
With less than five days before Wegmans opens its first Montgomery County grocery store, Kevin Grenzig took a glance around at fellow employees preparing for Sunday morning. “This is going really smoothly,” said Grenzig, the executive chef of the Germantown store on Seneca Meadows, who has helped open several Maryland Wegmans branches. “By now, we’re usually scrambling to get things done, but I don’t see a lot of that here.”
Employees have been preparing for opening day for months. The development process began some four years ago, after Wegmans found a parcel within walking distance of the 150,000-square-foot WalMart in Germantown. Its latest 123,000-square-foot store is set to open at 7 a.m. Sunday. Such an opening can draw a large crowd. When the 130,000-square-foot Frederick store opened on a Sunday morning in 2011, people started lining up hours before, and upward of
the school system to make changes to its tracking system for reports on such alleged behavior, according to school system memorandums. The discussion over the changes comes on the heels of the arrest of Lawrence Joynes, a music teacher who was accused of sexually abusing 14 children at New Hampshire Elementary School in Silver Spring and raping a 15th victim at Eastern Middle School, also in Silver Spring. Joynes taught at 11 schools during 27 years in the school system.
See TEACHERS, Page A-11
Trash collectors might end picket, return to work
New Wegmans store enters highly competitive Montgomery County market
BY
The latest education news in and affecting Montgomery County
Potomac Disposal, labor union scheduled to meet Wednesday n
WEGMANS OPENING
BY KRISTA BRICK AND ST. JOHN BARNED-SMITH
n When: 7 a.m. Sunday n Where: 20600 Seneca Meadows Parkway, Germantown
STAFF WRITERS
A strike by workers at a Gaithersburg trash-collecting company over accusations of worker intimidation by managers could end on Wednesday, if the sides can work out their differences. About 50 employees for Potomac Disposal went on strike Monday morning, claiming the company tried to intimidate them during labor negotiations last week with threats of immigration checks. Nicole Duarte, communications director for Laborers’ Inter-
n Hours: 6 a.m.-midnight, seven days a week n Employees: 550 n Size: 123,000 square feet n Special features: Market café with indoor and outdoor seating for 200, pizza shop, oldfashioned sub shop, kosher deli, coffee shop, organic salad bar, fresh seafood delivered daily from Maryland ports and others across the country, cheese shop with 300 specialty and artisan cheeses, pharmacy.
See SUPERMARKET, Page A-11
national Union of North America Mid-Atlantic Regional Organizing Coalition, which bargains for the workers, wrote in an email on Tuesday that strikers have offered to return to work, as they are legally required to do to keep their jobs. A meeting between management and the workers is scheduled to be held early Wednesday morning. “However, whether or not they actually return to work [Wednesday] is up to the employer and the content of that conversation,” Duarte wrote. Potomac Disposal did not address the accusations that workers made against the company. On Tuesday afternoon, Lee Levine, president of the company, invited
See TRASH, Page A-11
New program discourages donations to panhandlers Instead, campaign seeks to increase aid to groups that help poor n
BY
RYAN MARSHALL STAFF WRITER
TOM FEDOR/THE GAZETTE
Richard Willis, who is currently homeless, panhandles at the corner of Old Georgetown Road and Democracy Boulevard in Bethesda on Monday.
NEWS
SAYING ‘NO’ TO PEPCO The city of Gaithersburg is joining the county’s appeal of a Pepco rate increase.
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Richard Willis strolled up and down the thin median strip in Bethesda, following the ebb and flow of traffic as the lights changed. Monday was one of the first days Willis had come to the intersection of Democracy Bou-
levard and Old Georgetown Road in months, but he said he’s been coming to the area off and on for nearly 10 years. His small cardboard sign said he needed money for prescriptions, but Willis said he was actually trying to raise money to stay at a motel because there was no room in the homeless shelter where he had been staying. Drivers’ reaction to his presence is mostly good, although occasionally someone
See PANHANDLERS, Page A-9
SPORTS
A DIFFERENT TYPE OF PRESSURE Tennis players face a unique type of pressure when wearing their school’s colors.
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DAN GROSS/THE GAZETTE
Felix Rodriguez uses a bullhorn Tuesday to lead chants as workers from Potomac Disposal protest along Woodfield Road outside the company’s Gaithersburg headquarters.
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