Around Maryland

The Carroll County Board of Education is working to create a strategic plan for the public school system’s next five years, focusing on growth in student success, family and community partnerships, and support for staff. The school board held its first work session Monday afternoon to create the new strategic plan. The current five-year plan is due to expire next year and a new plan is due to the state by March 15. “It’s a living document, and you constantly tweak it,” said Board of Education President Kenneth Kiler, “but we hope to learn from it and to use that information to improve.”

A Frederick-based nonprofit and a New York-based developer plan to build a 57-unit workforce and senior housing community on 7.5 acres owned by game show host Pat Sajak. Maryland’s Department of Housing and Community Development announced last week that the developers have been awarded $3,750,000 million in state and federal tax credits to build on Admiral Drive in Annapolis. The application submitted by the developer Conifer, in partnership with the Interfaith Housing Alliance, received high marks from the state because it “would create intergenerational housing opportunities” in the Baltimore region.

While looking for a place to get vaccinated against monkeypox in August, Jack Feng of Baltimore looked to the city health department to try and schedule a shot. Case counts in the state and country were rising, and Feng wanted to be part of the solution and protect himself against the infectious disease. To his dismay, the health department and a private partner had limited doses in their possession, and Feng, a public health researcher and a member of the LGBTQ+ community, could not get an appointment. He also faulted the state and city health department for not immediately launching a pre-registration website, call line or public service announcement campaign to help people learn more about the outbreak. Feng asked himself: Was it worth leaving the state for someplace where shots were more plentiful?

Three scientists, including a Baltimore City school alumnus, jointly won this year’s Nobel Prize in physics on Tuesday for their work on quantum information science, a “totally crazy” field that has significant applications, including in the field of encryption. American John F. Clauser, Frenchman Alain Aspect and Austrian Anton Zeilinger were cited by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences for discovering the way that unseen particles, such as photons, can be linked, or “entangled,” with each other even when they are separated by large distances.

This month, displays detailing the experiences of domestic violence survivors will pop up in libraries, recreation centers and police stations. Each one will feature a pair of shoes and the stories of a particular survivor. Cheryl Kravitz, a survivor and longtime advocate in Montgomery County, shared her story at a news conference Tuesday announcing the Walk in Their Shoes campaign. She pointed to a pair of flats on display. “They’re flat because you need to run quickly to get out of the house when you can,” she said. Kravitz detailed the whirlwind romance that led her to marry a man who, over time, began to push and shove her. Then the violence escalated.