Police: After-school teacher's aide robbed, assaulted at Takoma Park ES; coworker charged

TAKOMA PARK, Md. (WJLA) — A pack of women, including a teacher's aide, is accused of attacking a fellow coworker with mace in the parking lot of Takoma Park Elementary School, authorities said in court records obtained by ABC7 News.

According to Takoma Park Police, on Monday, January 29 — around 3:39 p.m. — seven women approached the victim in the elementary school parking lot.

One woman allegedly sprayed the victim with mace, while the others kicked and dragged her across the chilly ground...

...At the time of the alleged incident, Pemberton and the victim both worked as teacher's aides for Kids Adventures, which provides before and after school childcare services at a number of area locations...

http://wjla.com/news/local/police-after-school-teachers-aide-robbed-assaulted-in-takoma-park-es-parking-lot

Takoma Park parents re-elect Chris Barclay while school HVAC system deterioriates

http://www.wjla.com/articles/2013/09/mold-at-takoma-park-elementary-school-due-to-budget-shortfalls-93967.html



Takoma Park parents elected Takoma Park resident Chris Barclay to the Board of Education, and Mr. Barclay currently holds the powerful position of BOE President.

Mr. Barclay put artificial turf fields ahead of elementary school maintenance, and now there is extensive mold throughout Rolling Terrace Elementary School. Carpet is now being ripped out and expensive mold remediation is in progress.

What is Mr. Barclay telling Rolling Terrace ES parents, teachers, and students now?

MCPS can't install 1 dishwasher, FCPS renovates an entire kitchen

In Montgomery County Public Schools a group of students have been advocating for a dishwasher in their school cafeteria for over 3 years.  The Board of Education has said no to their dishwasher pilot project.  But, over in Fairfax County Public Schools...a whole new school kitchen is being piloted.  

The Washington Post: Fairfax schools push for more healthful food

...Students at George C. Marshall High School will have access by next year to a commodity not available to most of their peers in Fairfax County: a made-from-scratch school lunch......Most school kitchens across the county are equipped only to warm pre-cooked meals, not to cook them from scratch. The board told the food division to set aside $100,000 to test whether and how schools might prepare meals fresh on site.
The money will go toward renovating the kitchen at Marshall High next June, officials decided recently. Parent advocates and school officials are working to figure out what kind of equipment they need to buy and what kind of menus they can realistically offer...

Secret gardens defy Weast ban

The Washington Post:  Frustration sprouts in Montgomery County over resistance to school gardens

...Montgomery County's handful of school vegetable gardens came about only because some schools went rogue and built them without central office permission. Parents whisper about them and try to shield them from publicity...

"Elsewhere, there's so much energy right now" around vegetable gardens at schools, Dill said. In Montgomery, by contrast, "it feels like molasses," she said.

Weast finds money for police, not teachers

Gazette: School system agrees to fund 17 county police for campuses

Final plan depends on approval of proposed budget

by Andre L. Taylor 

Seventeen Educational Facilities Officers will work in Montgomery County public schools next school year, but county police will not foot the bill...

...Montgomery County Public Schools agreed to pay for 17 Montgomery County Police officers in the schools, he said. The bill for the school system will be a little more than $1.9 million, Andrews said...

Weast cuts "Miss Frizzle"

School Scene by Sue Katz Miller  

Three years ago, Piney Branch Elementary School had a Math, Science and Computer Science program designed to bridge the gap between the gifted program at Takoma Park Elementary School, and the magnet at Takoma Park Middle School. Three teachers (a GT coordinator, a computer science teacher, and science teacher Leila Campbell) worked with every student in the school, not just those identified as gifted. By this year, the program had dwindled to a single position, held by the magical Leila Campbell, a teacher often compared to "Miss Frizzle," the science teacher who drives the magic school bus in the series of the same name...

continues here.