A team of nine students from Frederick County public high schools won the highest award in a nationwide design challenge for their project, “Re-Routing Transportation,” focusing on the growing concern of traffic along I-270 in Maryland. The team’s winning design included an aero-rail train system from Frederick to the Shady Grove Metro Station to relieve congestion and reduce commuter traffic, plus a multi-modal building to serve as a destination center for the community and many types of transportation.

The Construction Industry Roundtable-ACE (architecture, construction and engineering) national design competition winners are Nolian Papa from Frederick High, Nixy Osorio from Gov. Thomas Johnson High, Melissa Huston from Linganore High , Rachel Martinez and Mark Mifsud from Tuscarora High, Kristina Nguyen, Stephan Thai and Asaph Yeh from Urbana High , and Rosemary Masser from Walkersville High.

They are all second-year students in the local ACE Mentor Program, launched in 2005 to encourage careers in the industry. Bechtel Corporation, the Frederick Bechtel Women’s Group, FCPS Career & Technology Center, University of Maryland, Loiederman Soltesz Associates, Inc., the TIME Center, Trimble Navigation and Weyerhaeuser Company Foundation sponsor the Frederick Affiliate of the ACE Mentor Program.

The Frederick Affiliate is no stranger to national awards, having received the national ACE Mentor Program’s Emerging Affiliate of the Year Award for 2006-07. The local affiliate is part of a national initiative launched in 1991 in New York City and expanded to more than 100 teams across the continental United States and Hawaii. It provides more than 50 students in Frederick County with a 15-week hands-on experience working on projects alongside industry professionals. Many participants plan to continue studies in fields related to their ACE Mentor Program opportunities.

Rock Creek School invites students and friends of Doris D. Remsberg to a dedication of the school's recently refurbished gymnasium in her memory.

The dedication will take place on Saturday, May 17 at 1:00 pm.

Mrs. Remsberg, who passed away on August 7, 2007, was a tireless advocate for Frederick County children who were mentally disabled. An educator with Frederick County Public Schools for 43 years, she was instrumental in establishing Harmony Grove School in 1958, the first public school in the county for children with developmental disabilities. Mrs. Remsberg served as principal of the school, now known as Rock Creek School, until her retirement in 1993. Seeing a need to help her students beyond their school years, she played a key role in creating the Jeanne Bussard Center, which provides work opportunities for developmentally disabled adults once they leave the school system.

Dr. Earlene Thornton, Ph.D., former FCPS board member and past president, GAMMA, Delta Kappa Gamma, will emcee the dedication program. Guest speakers will include Mr. Daryl Boffman, Board of Education president, Dr. Linda Burgee, FCPS superintendent, and Ms. Pam Pencola, FCPS Special Education Services director. Lawrence "Tommy" Dorsey, Mrs. Remsberg's brother, and her three children will also provide remarks. The program will include a video presentation prepared by FCPS Communication Services Television Department, featuring interviews of former co-workers and a student who attended Rock Creek, and musical selections performed by students from Governor Thomas Johnson High's Arts and Communications Academy. A reception will follow the dedication.

The FCPS Board of Education approved the naming of the gymnasium at the Rock Creek School after Mrs. Remsberg at its February 20, 2008 meeting. The school is located at 191 Waverley Drive, Frederick.

Science students throughout Frederick County presented 120 projects at this year's middle and high school Science and Engineering Fair on Saturday, March 29. More than 50 professionals from the Frederick community judged the entries.

Of 22 participating high school students, Liv Johannessen of Gov. Thomas Johnson High won the grand prize for her project: "Synthetic Analogs of IGF-1 Receptor Juxtamembrane Domain: Potent Inhibitors of Cancer Cell Growth." First runner up is homeschooled student Mark Pritt for his first-place computer science project: "Virtual Tour Guide: An Application of the Scale-Invariant Feature Transform to Image-Based Landmark Identification." Both will represent Frederick County at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair in Atlanta, Georgia in May.

Other first-place high school winners in various categories are Catoctin student Taylor Myers for "Effects of Solar Wind Intensity on GPS Inaccuracy," Tuscarora students Shaan Ahmed for "The Effects of a Verbal Placebo on Physical Perception" and Helya Ghaffari for "Localization of the Domestic Cat Silver Coat Color Gene to Chromosome D2 by Linkage Analysis" and Walkersville students Jessica Metcalfe for "Screening for Anti-Cancer Agents That Inhibit Oncogenic Wnt-3A Signaling" and Roy Smith for "The Integration of a Computer into the Automobile to Provide an Enhanced Infotainment Experience."

Second-place high school winners are Frederick student Thomas Shaheen, Linganore student Alexandra Swanson and Tuscarora student Kimberley Anderson.

Third-place high school winners are Catoctin student Grace Wintermyer and Tuscarora student Marvin Gee.

Earning high school honorable mention awards: Catoctin students Emily Bowers, Nathan Lenhart, Ceth Parker, Catherine Squires and Amanda Wobbleton.

Of 98 middle school entries, the middle school grand prize went to Oakdale student Aidan Walker for the second year running; Aidan's project this year was "Inheritance of the CCR5 Delta 32 Mutation, a Family Pedigree." First runner up is Monocacy Middle student Ben Freed for his first-place project: "Biodiesel Production."

Other middle school first-place winners are Banner students Thomas Morgan and Miranda Stambler, Ballenger Creek student Keri Brady-Benzing, Brunswick students Emily Olsen and Catherine Zolbrod, Thurmont students Eric Stone for an individual project and Jacob Cochran and Chris Vaughn for a team project, Urbana student Kelly Henderson, Walkersville students Jordan Alltop, Patricia Dunford and Abigail Hoague, and Windsor Knolls student Cassie Lowell.

Second-place middle school winners are Banner students Carrie Dougher, Stacey Dougher, Alexandra Kindahl and Bronwen Schriml, Brunswick students Victoria Miller and Lynn Termohlen for individual projects and Catelyn Dorsey and Jessica Gabriel for a team project, Oakdale student Christine Fossaceca, Urbana students Hamzah Raza and David Smith, Visitation Academy student Lily Wherry, and Walkersville students Kelsey McCurdy and Megan Mounts.

Third-place middle school winners are Brunswick students Mennwa Abou El-Atta for an individual project and for team projects Brandon Bordwine and Blake Bunn, and the team of Estefani Rivera and Trisha Spesick, Friends Meeting School student Peter Fotopoulos, Thurmont student Michael Robinson, Urbana students Gavin Hawkins and Patrick Smith and Visitation Academy student Katie Kreke.

Middle school honorable mention awards went to Banner student Katie Morgan, Brunswick students Meg Bergman, Katy Cosby and Michele Kettner, Middletown student Avilash Das, Visitation Academy students Sarah Muir and Francesca Pandolfi, and Walkersville students Hanna Martinez and Megan Poole.

First-place art design winners for the booklet cover are Linganore High student Tracy Cowles and Urbana Middle student Emily Umbel.

The annual fair is sponsored through a partnership between Frederick County Public Schools and the Frederick Jaycees.

Children entered school in Frederick County much more prepared for kindergarten work in 2007 than in 2001, according to the latest Maryland Department of Education data compiled from Maryland Model for School Readiness (MMSR) standards. This school year, more than three quarters (76%) of entering students were deemed fully ready for kindergarten work, up from 68% in 2001. Statewide, 68% of kindergartners arrived fully ready to start school.

Overall, kindergartners in Frederick County are well-rounded, showing improvements in social and personal development, physical development, mathematical thinking and the arts. Language and literacy readiness increased from 51% in 2005 to 65% this school year. However, despite a 22-point gain in readiness for scientific thinking, over 1,200 children need considerable support in scientific thinking to do kindergarten work. Both males and females arrived more prepared than seven years ago, with 81% of girls and 71% of boys fully ready for school.

Significant gains were evident in children entering school from African American and Hispanic ethnic backgrounds in Frederick County. African American children made the most progress: up from 44% in 2001, 65% began 2007 fully ready for school. These gains narrowed the disparity between African American and white children from 27 points in 2001 to 14 points in 2007. Students from Hispanic backgrounds increased in school readiness from 52% in 2001 to 67% in 2007.

Frederick County saw a 49-point increase in the past seven years in kindergarten readiness for children whose first language is not English. Still, compared with 77% of their English-proficient peers, only 62% of English language learners arrived ready for kindergarten in 2007.

Children from low-income families made gains as well: 65% are fully ready this school year, up from 30% in 2001. The gains narrowed disparity between children from low and mid-to-high income families from a 39-point to a 14-point difference since 2001.

Four percent of the county's children need considerable support to do kindergarten work, a 4-point reduction since 2004. For children receiving special education services, the gap widened from 18 to 36 points, with a 3-point increase from last year resulting in only 42% of children who receive special education services arriving fully ready for kindergarten.

The latest data are a tribute to all that is being done in the County to promote school readiness in young children, says Frederick County Public Schools' Early Childhood specialist Shari Ostrow Scher. "These numbers help us define priorities so that when all partners--including parents, child-service organizations, libraries, county government, FCPS and others--continue to work toward additional gains, Frederick County's school readiness success can only grow."

The full MMSR report is online at http://www.readyatfive.org.