Around Maryland

ShotSpotter, a gunshot detection system used by police in Baltimore and other major cities for years, is now in Baltimore County, and the county executive is wondering how much it might help. Baltimore County Executive Johnny Olszewski spoke with WBAL’s T.J. Smith on Tuesday. Olszewski spoke about the $738,000 test run on the detection system.

With our crowded roadways, taking away a lane of traffic would, intuitively, seem to cause enormous delays for drivers. And resistance to change seems baked into the human condition. So it’s unsurprising that the installation in December of 2022 of separated, buffered bike lanes along two miles of Montgomery County’s Old Georgetown Road, while removing lanes for cars, spurred virulent opposition.

The Board of Education will host a public hearing on the closure at 6:30 p.m. Aug. 23 at Pikesville High School and make its decision Sept. 12. The early learning center is recommended for closure because of students being routed to other schools. As part of capital improvement in the school system, 1,200 more seats are being added to elementary schools in the Northwest area, according to Pete Dixit, the system’s executive director of facilities management and strategic planning, and Paul Taylor, director of strategic planning.

Sylvia M. Burwell came to the presidency of American University six years ago with a decidedly unusual résumé. Unlike most of her peers in academia, she had never been a dean, a provost or even a professor. She did not have a master’s, PhD or other advanced degree. Yet Burwell hardly seemed inexperienced. What she brought to AU in abundance was deep knowledge of the ways of Washington as a former director of the White House Office of Management and Budget and former U.S. secretary of health and human services in the Obama administration.

The Peale, Baltimore’s Community Museum, with support from the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Tuesday announced the 2023 Grit Fund Awards winners, as nine individual projects received a total of $60,000 for innovative, community-based works and research efforts. Since 2015, Baltimore’s artists have found support for their projects through the Grit Fund.

Plans for a $155 million mixed-use redevelopment of Baltimore’s so-called Superblock downtown took a step forward Tuesday after a city panel voted to allow the demolition of five historic buildings. Tuesday’s hearing was the third time this year the proposed Superblock redevelopment went before the Commission for Historical and Architectural Preservation.

When a special educator in Baltimore County took leave for two quarters last school year, Beverly Folkoff’s caseload doubled. Relay Elementary School couldn’t find a substitute, so Folkoff, the county’s teacher of the year, and the only other special educator on her team, shared the extra six cases. That made it difficult to prioritize her teaching. “Am I going to teach the child in front of me or am I going to do this paperwork?” Folkoff asked herself. She always picked the kids, she said, but that meant spending extra hours after school to finish the paperwork.

In preparation for the 2023-24 school year, the Montgomery County Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) plans to hold free vaccination clinics throughout August. As required by Maryland law, students must be vaccinated and either show proof of vaccination on the first day of school or show proof of a scheduled vaccination appointment within the first 20 days.

In the Hagerstown area and neighboring West Virginia, where the eastern panhandle is experiencing explosive growth, there is a focus on small business driving the economy. Maryland State Comptroller Brooke Lierman has her finger on the pulse of commerce in both large and small communities. “I love hearing how much small business operators love doing business with their local customers,” she said. “We are a large region here in the State of Maryland so we always look forward to working with our neighbors in West Virginia and surrounding communities.”