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Parents want what teachers don’t: A student with constant cellphone access
Despite policies that limit when students can use their phones, teachers say confiscating them can lead to unnecessary battles — often involving parents — that take even more time away from instruction.
The cellphones in just about every middle- and high-schooler’s backpack can be both essential tools for families and distractions from learning.
Maryland is seeing a new wave of COVID cases, but don’t expect much masking or testing
With the first day of school just around the corner, health officials are urging kids and adults to get up to date on their vaccinations, including the latest COVID-19 booster, expected in September.
FILE - A patient is given a flu vaccine at the L.A. Care and Blue Shield of California Promise Health Plans' Community Resource Center where they were offering members and the public free flu and COVID-19 vaccines Friday, Oct. 28, 2022, in Lynwood, Calif. As Americans head into the late 2022 holiday season, a rapidly intensifying flu season is straining hospitals already overburdened with patients sick from other respiratory infections.
Baltimore City aims to bolster student attendance with back-to-school rally
With Baltimore City schools resuming Aug. 28, city agencies distributed a multitude of resources to families Saturday in hopes of bolstering attendance this fall.
Assata, 7, inspects her new rainbow backpack.
Ex-Gilman teacher faces federal charge of possession of sexually explicit images of children
Christopher Bendann faces charges in state court that he sexually abused a student. He was arrested by the FBI early Friday.
Chris Bendann, 39, exits the Baltimore County Courthouse in Towson with his legal team after a hearing on Tuesday, July 18, 2023. The former Gilman School teacher is accused of sexually abusing a student between 2016 and 2019, and was indicted on 16 counts including sexual abuse of a minor, rape and related offenses.
Maryland AG rejects approval of Towson doctoral program, HBCU group praises opinion
Attorney General Anthony Brown found that the Maryland Higher Education Commission did not have enough members present when it voted to overturn a decision by the MHEC’s assistant secretary of academic affairs.
Maryland  Attorney General Anthony Brown speaks at a news conference in April 2023.
Naval Academy should adapt traditions, add training to reverse spike in sexual misconduct, report says
The spike in sexual assaults at service academies was worst in Annapolis, where 23% of female midshipmen experienced unwanted sexual contact and sexual harassment. The causes are both unique to the Naval Academy and common to all college freshmen.
Naval Academy upper-class midshipmen take an oath as they prepare to lead plebes through their first summer.  A new Pentagon report found that better training and support for peer leaders may help reduce sexual assaults at the service academies.
Day cares serving low-income families have struggled to stay open. That’s starting to change.
A series of improvements to Maryland’s child care scholarship system are easing the administrative burden that once plagued day care providers. But challenges remain.
Carolina Reyes, Director of Arco Iris Bilingual Children’s Center in Laurel, poses for a portrait near an outdoor play area outside the center, Wednesday, Aug. 9, 2023.
Want to work in Maryland’s cannabis industry? There are classes and degrees for that.
Marylanders working in the cannabis industry are required to get training, and others want as much education as they can get. There are now classes catering to all of them.
Jacquie Cohen Roth is pictured at her home on August 10, 2023, with her cannabis plant, Louise, that was named after her grandmother. Louise loved the way the plant leaves looked in her flower arrangements.
HBCU advocates: Proposed doctoral program at Towson University violates 2021 legal settlement
The group says a proposed program in business analytics at Towson University “duplicates a well-established, functionally identical business analytics administration program at Morgan State University.”
Towson University campus
My kids’ elementary school is a dusty pile of rubble. That’s progress, I guess.
I’ve watched with a sense of loss this summer as Hillsmere Elementary School dissolved into a dusty pile of brick-and-concrete rubble, bent-steel framing and broken rebar.
All that's left of old Hillsmere Elementary School in Annapolis is the sign, as work continues on shifting students and staff to a new building later this month.
With Black history under attack, Black museums are more important than ever
Terri Lee Freeman, president of the Reginald F. Lewis Museum of Maryland African American History and Culture, says society is at a crossroads where the accurate telling of history is of the utmost importance.
Terri Lee Freeman is president of the Reginald F. Lewis Museum of Maryland African American History and Culture, the state’s largest museum devoted to African American history.
Baltimore City students take to the simulated sky during weeklong BWI program
Fifty Baltimore City campers ages 10 to 14 participated in Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport’s summer youth initiative this week, getting a behind-the-scenes look at airport operations, customs and TSA management, as well as a day at the Community College of Baltimore County for a look at its robust aviation program.
Instructor Jane Toskes shows campers Tori and Lauren how to fly a plane simulation.
What happens when a day care center abruptly closes? Some Baltimore parents found out.
The emergency suspension at Baltimore Montessori may be a harbinger of a growing crisis in the child care industry that often struggles to pay the bills and doesn’t have enough willing and qualified workers.
The Baltimore Montessori school in South Baltimore pictured on August 10, 2023. (Meredith Cohn/The Baltimore Banner)
Maryland still has a teacher shortage, but this school year looks better than last
Baltimore-area school districts offered bonuses, raised salaries, held dozens of job fairs and tried improving work culture to keep the teachers they have and hire new ones.
Alexis Uhland teaches her third grade class at Berkshire Elementary School in Dundalk on March 3, 2023. Baltimore County Public Schools had more than 300 unfilled teaching jobs at the end of July.
Howard County is cutting school bus service for 3,500 students. Was there another way?
The conflict over school bus service in Howard County can be traced to one critical decision: pushing back high school start times.
The conflict over school bus service in Howard County can be traced to one critical decision: pushing back high school start times.
Meet Towson University’s new president, Mark Ginsberg
Towson University’s next president is an administrator at George Mason University with experience supporting diversity on campus.
Mark R. Ginsberg will be the next president of Towson University.
‘No better present’: Henrietta Lacks’ family celebrates historic settlement over stolen cells
Lacks’ family and Thermo Fisher Scientific agreed to keep terms of the settlement confidential. Her family celebrated the deal with cake on what would have been Lacks’ 103rd birthday.
Henrietta Lacks’ living relatives reached a settlement with the biotechnology company they sued seeking compensation for its use of cells that were taken from her decades ago without her consent. From left, Ron Lacks, Alfred Carter and attorney Ben Crump.
Coppin State and former coach Juan Dixon dismissed from sexual assault, blackmail lawsuit
Baltimore Circuit Judge Melissa K. Copeland said she will allow Ibn Williams, 23, of Newark, New Jersey, to file an amended complaint in the case.
6/28/22—the exterior of the Clarence M. Mitchell, Jr. Courthouse.
Settlement talks scheduled in Henrietta Lacks family’s lawsuit seeking compensation for her stolen cells
Lawsuits alleging profits have been made from stolen, regenerative biological material aren’t common. But if the strategy works, this could become the first in a series of complaints seeking compensation for and control of Lacks’ cells.
Henrietta Lacks, a 31-year-old mother of five, died of cervical cancer on 4 October 1951.
Growing up with a camera in her hand: Karina Serio, MDDC High School Journalist of the Year
Her earliest memory of assisting her dad on a photo assignment was when Cal Ripken was in the World Series and she was only 8 years old.
Karina Serio, award-winning student photographer.
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