FOUR MORE YEARS Terms for Rockville mayor, council doubled A-3
A&E: Imagination Stage brings Roald Dahl’s Big Friendly Giant to life. B-5
The Gazette
ROCKVILLE | ASPEN HILL | NORTH POTOMAC | OLNEY DA I LY U P DAT E S AT G A Z E T T E . N E T
Wednesday, July 16, 2014
Rockville Rotary Twilight Runfest is Saturday BY
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Business groups eye plans for Rockville Pike
On your marks, get set ... n
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RYAN MARSHALL STAFF WRITER
Whether for fun, fitness or free beer, runners will have an opportunity to participate in a long-standing tradition in Rockville on Saturday. The 29th annual Rockville Rotary Twilight Runfest will feature an 8K road race, a 1K fun run and a 2-mile family fitness walk that is new this year, said Betsy Thompson, superintendent of recreation for the city. The race will start at Middle Lane and North Washington Street, wind its way through the city and down Rockville Pike before ending up back at Rockville Town Center, she said. The race is scheduled to start at 8:45 p.m., and a festival featuring music and drinks, food and free beer for runners, will go from 7 to 11 p.m. This year also will feature glow necklaces for runners and walkers and live music from seven stations along the course, Thompson said. The race always draws more than 2,000 runners, and has drawn as many as 2,800, she said. Last year’s race was canceled because of persistent lightning. Race organizers have a staff member to monitor the dew point to make sure it’s safe to run, Thompson said. In 2008’s race, a man collapsed and died from what Thompson said was a heart attack in intense heat. If the dew point — a measure of temperature and humidity in the air — doesn’t drop to a safe level, the race can be done as an un-timed fun run, Thompson said. Each year, the race raises a significant amount of money for the city’s youth recreation fund, which provides scholarships for children to attend camps or afterschool activities or play on sports teams, she said. The race also provides money for Rotary Club grants. More information on the festival is at rockvillemd.gov/index. aspx?NID=669. rmarshall@gazette.net
Officials say curriculum didn’t match tests
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LINDSAY A. POWERS STAFF WRITER
Montgomery County elementary and middle school students’ reading and math
INDEX Automotive Calendar Classified Entertainment Obituaries Opinion Sports
TOM FEDOR/THE GAZETTE
(From left) Sherwood High School students Diane Trieu, 16, Anya Mudryakova, 16, and Emily Gilburt, 15, plus Savannah Suser (not pictured) created a popular video on bullying.
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Sherwood students want to attend awards show in California BY
TERRI HOGAN STAFF WRITER
Four Sherwood High School juniors are spending their summer trying to raise money to attend a leadership conference and Teen Video Awards show, after learning that their anti-bullying video was selected as a finalist in a global competition. Anya Mudryakova, Savannah Suser, Diane Trieu and Emily Gilburt wrote, directed and acted in the video “One” as a project at the Sandy Spring school. The assignment required students to create an anti-bullying video, and they were encouraged to submit them to the Great American No Bull Challenge competition. The contest is presented by a social action organization whose goal is to inspire teens around the world to take a stand against bullying, and to promote digital responsibility, leadership and social action through filmmaking. The girls have been best friends since their freshman year. Even though they were in separate health classes, they decided to work together to create the video. Anya, 16, of Olney, took charge. The girls
got together after school to brainstorm and they came up with their theme: One person can make a difference. “We came up with the story,” she said. “It was pretty easy, since every one of us has been bullied.” “It was really beautiful how it just came together,” said Emily, 15, of Silver Spring. Their video is at youtube.com/ watch?v=HDwWTXIJX9s. Diane, 16, of Brookeville, portrayed the main character who was bullied, because while the girls all said they had been bullied, she thought she could relate the best. “I guess I have been bullied because my personality is different,” she said. “I am more outgoing, and I guess that is looked down upon by others. It’s been ongoing, but lessened after I started high school.” Diane said because of her past experiences and some teenage heartbreak, it was easy for her to play the part. “My boyfriend had just broke up with me, so I had been really sad the entire week we filmed it,” she said. “That made it pretty easy to play the character.” Emily said that in contrast, it was hard to play a “terrible character,” having to laugh at and make fun of her best friend.
proficiency fell across the board in the last year of Maryland School Assessment tests, according to 2014 data released Friday by state education officials. Officials attributed the declines largely to the fact that county schools use a curriculum geared to new state stan-
dards. Next year, students will take a test that officials say will match the new standards and therefore the curriculum. The biggest drop was seen in elementary students’ math proficiency. The number of students who reached at least the proficiency level went down about 8.6 percentage points
The county’s public schools are to get a major digital infusion next year.
See TESTS, Page A-9
Volume 27, No. 29, Two sections, 28 Pages Copyright © 2014 The Gazette Please
RECYCLE
with a walking meeting where people will be able to walk the area that the plan will affect. The area stretches from Richard Montgomery Drive in the north to the city’s municipal boundaries near Bou Avenue in the south, and from the Metrorail right of way on the east to Wootton Parkway, Woodmont Country Club and East Jefferson Street on the west. Councilman Tom Moore said he would like to have an informal community meeting, too. The plan could radically alter traffic along Md. 355 and bring changes for businesses along the road that is one of Montgomery County’s main corridors. While it’s very early in the process, Rockville business groups plan to stay involved as the plan moves forward.
See PIKE, Page A-9
BILL RYAN/THE GAZETTE
Montgomery County plans to crack down on people who put up signs in public rights of way. On July 9, these illegally placed signs were collected and deposited at the Shady Grove Processing Facility and Transfer Station in Derwood.
Signs of the times County confiscates signs in public rights of way, to start tracking offenders
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RYAN MARSHALL STAFF WRITER
from last year. About 75.9 percent of the students scored proficient or higher this year, compared with 84.5 percent last year. The number of middle school students reaching at least the math proficiency level
TECH PLAN
Work on Rockville’s longrange vision for Rockville Pike will quicken in the fall, and local business groups will be keeping an interested eye on how the plan develops. The city’s mayor and council on Monday discussed preliminary plans for handling discussion of the plan, which lays out a vision for transforming a 382-acre section of the city along a nearly 2-mile section of Rockville Pike and make it more friendly to a mix of transportation and development styles. Mayor Bridget Donnell Newton said the city will have at least one public hearing on the plan,
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See VIDEO, Page A-9
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RYAN MARSHALL STAFF WRITER
NEWS B-11 A-2 B-7 A-11 A-8 A-10 B-1
City will have hearings, discussions in the fall BY
Students’ scores fall in last year of state tests n
SPORTS: Blair swimmer becoming one of the best in the county. B-1
If you drive around Montgomery County, you’ve probably seen the signs that spring up at virtually every major intersection — or sometimes even nowhere near an intersection — advertising everything from political candidates to weight loss programs and offers to buy your house fast. On July 9, a mix of county staffers fanned out around the county, collecting more than 2,500 signs, signaling what one official said will be an increased
effort to crack down on people who repeatedly put signs in public rights of way. The signs create nuisances for communities, and the number of calls and complaints the county gets has been increasing, said Ehsan Motazedi, division chief of the Zoning and Site Plan Enforcement in the county’s Department of Permitting Services. Motazedi said the more urban areas of the county tend to see more illegal signs, although rural areas also see some, he said. Last week’s sweep scooped up a lot of signs from Germantown, Wheaton, and the Potomac, Bethesda and Chevy Chase areas, with a mix of busi-
See SIGNS, Page A-9