Classroom notes

‘‘It’s not something we’ve done in the past nor will it be something we’ve done in the future,” School board chairman Owen Johnson Jr. said when reached Monday at an educational conference in Park City, Utah. ‘‘This is not a condoned behavior. ... We would never agree with that behavior, absolutely not.”

The e-mail came about after the group People for Change in Prince George’s County — an organization of about 11 residents who claim a list serve that reaches about 20,000 residents — lambasted school officials for honoring outgoing student board member Leslie Hall.

During an investigation into former school board Nathaniel Thomas, who was accused of having inappropriate relationships with students, a report alleged that Hall played suggestive games and drank alcohol with Thomas.

Thomas, a former county teacher, was indicted June 5 on sexual offense charges in a relationship he had with a former student who was 15 at the time.

People for Change called for Hall’s removal, and Sandra Pruitt called Hall’s behavior ‘‘disgusting” at the board’s final meeting June 21 of the 2006-2007 school year.

Beck took exception to Pruitt’s comments during the board’s public participation session, sending a harshly worded e-mail that included expletives, which were acknowledged by the board in a letter sent to Pruitt on July 10.

The board called Beck’s language ‘‘inappropriate” and reminded her that ‘‘Mrs. Beck’s comments do not represent the Board as a whole.” The board said it met with Beck and discussed her behavior, but decided against disciplinary action.

People for Change demanded Beck’s resignation this week since she sent the message from her school system e-mail account. Pruitt called misusage of Beck’s e-mail account an ‘‘inappropriate use of taxpayer funded government property.”

Policies for Prince George’s school system e-mail accounts include provisions against ‘‘using abusive or otherwise objectionable language in either public or private messages.”

Beck said she was surprised by People for Change’s persistent attacks on Hall, 17, over the last two months of his term.

‘‘It is unfortunate a group of adults chose to publicly malign a student who was an alleged victim of an adult when he was a minor,” Beck wrote in an e-mail to The Gazette. ‘‘Mrs. Pruitt and I clearly have a difference of opinion; if I have anything to say, I will speak to her and not communicate through a newspaper.”

School board:Greetings from Utah

The Prince George’s County Board of Education joined five school boards from heavily populated urban areas struggling with low academic performance for an educational conference in Park City, Utah, this week.

The boards gathered for the Center for Reform of School Systems’ (CRSS) Reform Governance in Action (RGA) conference to review and discuss strategies for changing test scores and the culture of fledgling school districts. The program will last for two years and will require travel to several educational conferences, which Superintendent John Deasy is expected to attend. The costs to each school district – about $400,000 – are paid for by a grant to CRSS.

In an e-mail to The Gazette, county board member Rosalind Johnson (Dist. 1) of Laurel said participating school officials will endure 12-hour workdays as they discuss complex case studies on what to look for in a superintendent, how to handle local media and how to deal with crisis situations.

The last conference the board attended sparked a crisis for Prince George’s schools officials. Parents of a county student claimed their 18-year-old child attended the San Francisco trip with former board member Nathaniel B. Thomas without their permission, which spurred a series of events that led to his resignation June 5 after being indicted on sexual offense charges.

Reviewing the case studies, Johnson said, has been enlightening for board members.

‘‘The ... work gives us hands-on experience with critically reviewing the choices that other U.S. school districts have made and deciding what choices we would have made,” Johnson wrote. ‘‘There are massive readings which we must annotate and present our plans to the full group. We must be able to support our decisions and defend which decisions we have made.”

The final goal of the weeklong conference is to create ‘‘change agents” in struggling school systems, she wrote.

Johnson, who has no problem with extreme altitude after several vacations to Mexico City over the last few decades, said some RGA participants outside the Prince George’s camp had a tough time adjusting to being more than 10,000 feet above sea level.

‘‘I am happy to report that no one in our group suffered, but a few others did and they had to be taken down to Salt Lake City to acclimate themselves to the higher altitude,” she wrote.

The mystery ofthe anonymous money

An unknown philanthropist gave Prince George’s Community College a hefty gift this month.

The Largo-based college announced this week that an anonymous donor left a package containing $80,000 for the college’s arts and music program. The funds will be used to start an outreach program that will promote the arts program and help renovate PGCC’s sculpture lab in Upper Marlboro.

The mysterious arts and music enthusiast sent a note along with the chunk of change.

‘‘I am giving this gift to the college in recognition of the outstanding art faculty and the sculpture program,” the donor said in the note. ‘‘I encourage others to make contributions to the fund.”

The Sculpture Fund is being used to renovate the sculpture lab in coming years. To donate, send checks to the Prince George’s Community College Foundation Inc., 301 Largo Road, in Largo. For more information, call 301-322-0858.

The anonymous donor was not the only party to beef up PGCC’s funds this summer.

Thanks to another philanthropic organization, PGCC has $95,200 for county high school graduates looking to earn two-year degrees.

The Kathy and Jerry Wood Foundation, established by the couple who started the famed Annapolis Boat Show, gave the money to the Prince George’s Community College Foundation Inc., for qualified county students seeking scholarship help. The money will give 25 county high school grads a full ride through two years at PGCC.

Brenda Mitchell, executive director of the PGCC foundation, which was established as a nonprofit organization that provides financial resources to incoming PGCC students, said the county needs more philanthropists.

‘‘We very much appreciate the Kathy and Jerry Wood Foundation’s generosity,” Mitchell said. ‘‘They understand that many Prince George’s County students need these type of opportunities so they can pursue their educational and career goals.”

The Wood Foundation also gave money to Anne Arundel Community College recently, inviting only graduates from that county’s high schools to apply for scholarships.

Information and applications for the Kathy and Jerry Wood Foundation scholarships are available at the college’s Office of Financial Aid. The office can be reached at 301-322-0822.