GERMANTOWN CAMPUS Qiagen expanding in size and scope. A-4
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NEWS: Home-school group earns spot in Science Olympiad National Tournament. A-3
GERMANTOWN | CLARKSBURG DA I LY U P DAT E S AT G A Z E T T E . N E T
Wednesday, April 22, 2015
School board to take broad look at testing in district n
Civic association originally started to avoid town crisis n
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STAFF WRITER
See BOYDS, Page A-10
DAN GROSS/THE GAZETTE
(From left) Actor Cecelia Pauley of Silver Spring, actor Al Richardson of Gaithersburg, Northwest High School senior and volunteer mentor Hannah Kauffman and actor Ming Yeh of Rockville listen to direction from ArtStream staff member Julia Cowles of Silver Spring (back to camera).
Theater company brings mentor back year after year Germantown student has more than 900 student service hours with ArtStream n
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SAMANTHA SCHMIEDER STAFF WRITER
For Northwest High School senior Hannah Kauffman, mentoring ArtStream’s Gaithersburg Inclusive Theatre Company for the past five years has been more than community service — it’s been a passion. “I started in eighth grade with no expectations,” Kauffman, who turns 18 on April 25, said. “We have 18 or 20 actors with a complete range of abilities. Just being able to see them grow over the five years I’ve been here has been amazing.” ArtStream’s general mission statement, according to its website, is to “create artistic opportunities for individuals in communities traditionally underserved by the arts.” Part of that occurs through its Inclusive Theatre
Companies in Gaithersburg, Silver Spring, Arlington and Raleigh and at George Mason University that are open to adults with intellectual disabilities, learning disabilities and those who are on the Autism Spectrum. There are two groups in Gaithersburg and Kauffman has been working with Group B. Nicolette Stearns, a cofounder of ArtStream, has children around Kauffman’s age and noticed her in their plays and social groups. “We needed mentors at ArtStream. She’s kind, smart, a quick study, respectful and very much a leader in the group. I asked if she wanted to come and she never left,” Stearns said. Montgomery County Public School students must each earn 75 Student Service Learning (SSL) hours in order to graduate and 260 or more for a special tassel to wear at graduation, Kauffman explained. She said she has earned 900 SSL hours in the five years she has been involved in ArtStream.
See MENTOR, Page A-10
Montgomery County Public Schools may exempt some students from final exams next year if they’re in classes that require them to take one of two state tests. The school system is considering the change following a request from two school board members concerned about students taking redundant tests. In a March 24 letter, board President Patricia O’Neill and board member Philip Kauffman asked Interim Superintendent Larry Bowers to consider final exam exemptions this year for students in five subjects to “provide some relief for our students and staff from this redundant local and state testing.” Students in the district’s Algebra, Algebra 2 and English 10 courses take Partnership for Assessment of Readiness of College and Careers (PARCC) tests. Students in Biology and National, State, and Local Government classes take High School Assessments. Bowers said the district is receptive to the idea, but not for this
Rocky Hill Middle girls run for health, fitness Clarksburg 5K was goal of after-school running program
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PEGGY MCEWAN STAFF WRITER
Twelve girls from Rocky Hill Middle School in Clarksburg ran in Saturday’s Clarksburg 5K., proving to themselves that they could do it. The girls are part of a RecXtra Fir for Life program at the school designed to teach them how to work out as females and get the extra boost of self-esteem that setting and achieving a goal gives the girls, said Terri Tippett, physical education
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content specialist at Rocky Hill. “They were tired but did it,” Tippett wrote in an email after the race. “They were very happy with themselves for finishing.” Tippett coaches the girls twice a week after school. They start with warm-up exercises in the gym then move outside to run the 0.7 of a mile path around the school. At one of their last meetings before the 5K, most girls were doing that run three times, totaling just over 2 miles. The program they follow is a combination of walking, jogging and running, using an app called Couch-to-5K Run-
See RUN, Page A-10
TOM FEDOR/THE GAZETTE
Grayson Wanska (center) and other Rocky Hill Middle School girls run as part of the “girls fit for life” after-school fitness club in Clarksburg.
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FARCICAL SERVANT Montgomery College plays with commedia dell’arte in production of “Servant of Two Masters.” B-4
Volume 28, No. 14, Two sections, 28 Pages Copyright © 2015 The Gazette
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year. He said in a March 30 memo that “the challenges outweighed the benefits” when officials considered making a change to final exam requirements this year. Instead, officials expect to decrease the amount of tests next year. “Central services staff members are developing a plan that will provide relief during the 2015-16 school year,” his memo says. That plan will include changes to final exams and could be broader, school system spokesman Dana Tofig wrote in an email. O’Neill said in an interview she didn’t know if the county and state tests mentioned in her request are “totally redundant.” She added, however, that “it does seem a bit redundant” for a county student to take a final exam so soon after taking a PARCC test in the spring. “Our high school kids really are overloaded with assessments, and I truly worry about test fatigue, about kids not taking any one of them seriously,” she said. In their letter, O’Neill and Kauffman described the potential final exam exemptions as a shortterm measure amid a larger look at testing in the district. The school board plans to
See EXAM, Page A-10
Late-session stall kills student-member bill Proposal to extend local voting rights ran into Frederick County opponent n
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LINDSAY A. POWERS STAFF WRITER
PEGGY MCEWAN
Fifty years ago, the rural community of Boyds was threatened with the loss of its post office and the town’s residents united to fight the closing. That was the beginning of the Boyds Civic Association, which celebrated its 50th anniversary on Thursday. “In January [1965], our postmaster had a stroke,” said Arthur Virts Jr., association historian and founding member. “Soon we were faced with the closing of our post office. That evening I called the pastor [of Boyd’s Presbyterian Church] and said we need a civic association.” Virts, who was born in Boyds in 1928, said there was a men’s club in the town that disbanded and became the nucleus of the new organization. They needed everybody in the community on board, he said, not just the white men who made up the club. And the community did pull together, writing letters to congressmen and the postmaster, buying hundreds of dollars in stamps, to make the post office seem busy enough to keep open, he said. “By June we had saved the post office,” he said. “We managed to keep [the civic association] 50 years.” Thursday’s meeting was not all about history, though Catherine Matthews, director of the Upcounty Regional Of-
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MCPS considers exam exemptions for some students
Boyds group celebrates 50 years BY
SPORTS: Clarksburg senior finds quiet way to help track team reach new heights. B-1
LINDSAY A. POWERS STAFF WRITER
With minutes left in the Maryland General Assembly’s 2015 session, state Sen. Nancy King thought there was time to pass a bill to expand voting rights for Montgomery County’s student school board member. “I thought, ‘This is going to sail right through,’” said King (DDist. 39) of Montgomery Village. But there was a roadblock — state Sen. Michael J. Hough, whose skeptical questioning ran out the clock, preventing a final vote on the bill. Hough (R-Dist. 4) of Brunswick said in an interview last week that, after reading the bill with a few minutes left, he “joined the bipartisan tradition in killing that bill.” He noted that former Sen. Brian E. Frosh made sure the bill didn’t pass in a previous session.
Currently, Montgomery’s student member of the board can vote on many issues. The bill would have added previously restricted matters, including the capital and operating budgets, collective bargaining, school closures and school boundaries. The student still would not vote on negative personnel issues, such as suspensions or dismissals. Before the 2015 session began, some county lawmakers thought the bill had a good shot at passing this year after past failures. Frosh, a former Montgomery delegation member and now state attorney general, was an outspoken opponent of granting more voting rights to the student board member. Hough said it would be “absurd” to let a teenager vote on collective bargaining and teacher pay, possibly facing pressure from a teachers’ union. Hough’s district includes Carroll and Frederick counties. Frederick County’s student board member doesn’t vote and
See BILL, Page A-10