The La Plata High School It’s Academic team advances to a semifinals playoff match, set for this Saturday, March 4, as winners of a regional competition recently held at NBC4 studios in Washington, D.C. The team of Captain Justin Cortez, Michael Gill and James Hume earned a total of 580 points in a match against Benjamin Banneker Academic and George Mason high schools held Feb. 18. The team faces students from Rockville and Langley high schools March 4. Cortez is a senior at La Plata and has been a member of the It’s Academic team since he was a freshman. Read more…

Charles County Public Schools (CCPS) Superintendent Kimberly A. Hill was reappointed by the Board of Education on Monday, Feb. 27 to serve a second, four-year term. Hill, who has served as superintendent since July 1, 2013, thanked the Board for renewing her contract and for their trust in her leadership. “It is an honor to serve as Superintendent of Charles County Public Schools. We have made great progress during the past four years, and I look forward to continuing to work with our students and staff to reach even higher goals,” Hill said following the meeting.  “The Board expressed its Read more…

Robotics teams from five Charles County public elementary and middle schools competed in the 2017 Save the Bay/Chemical Engineering Robotics Challenge held Feb. 11 at Theodore G. Davis Middle School. The event is sponsored annually by the National Defense Education Program (NDEP) and is part of the 2016-17 Naval Surface Warfare Center Indian Head Explosive Ordnance Technology Division (NSWC IHEODTD) In-School Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) program. The event features two levels of competition: one for fifth-grade teams, the Save the Bay challenge, and one for eighth-grade teams, the Chemical Engineering challenge. Awards are given in four categories: robotics, Read more…

Rev. Reginald Green talked about riots, mobs and being arrested. He was a Freedom Rider and shared his firsthand experiences from more than 50 years ago with Theodore G. Davis Middle School students. Davis social studies teacher Duania Darby invited Green to Davis on Feb. 24 after her seventh graders completed a unit for Black History Month on the Freedom Riders, a group of civil rights activists formed in the 1960s. Darby said she thought the students would enjoy hearing a firsthand account of the Freedom Rides. “We were studying last week about Freedom Riders and what better way to Read more…

The Board of Education of Charles County is hosting two Town Hall meetings for Charles County Public Schools (CCPS) employees. The first Town Hall is 4:30 to 6 p.m., Monday, Feb. 27, in the staff development room at the Jesse L. Starkey Administration Building. The Feb. 27 meeting is for CCPS support staff. The second Town Hall meeting is 4:30 to 6 p.m., Monday, March 6, in the boardroom at the Starkey Building. The second meeting is for CCPS certificated staff members. The meetings are open to the public, but will not be televised or streamed live on the CCPS Read more…

Berry Elementary School celebrated more than just Valentine’ Day on Tuesday, Feb. 14. It was also the day when students were recognized for their academic performance from the second quarter during the quarterly honor roll assemblies. Students in grades 1-2 were honored if they received all “consistently demonstrating” on their second quarter report card. These students were also recognized for their hard work and demonstration of readiness for the next grade level. Students in grades 3-5 were honored for honor roll and principal’s honor roll, depending on their grade-point average (GPA). Parents filled the gymnasium for both assemblies to share Read more…

If they were nervous, the middle school spellers didn’t show it as the 39th annual Charles County Spelling Bee got underway earlier this month. Hosted at Theodore G. Davis Middle School, the Bee had nearly 60 students from public and private schools who have spelled their way through their schools’ Bees to make it to the county event. Daphne Spencer, a Davis eighth grader who led the Pledge of Allegiance and was a member of her school’s spelling team, studied by writing words out on a legal pad. “That legal pad is kind of full,” she said. She and her Read more…

The North Point High School Chamber Choir is a family. A group of 27 brothers and sisters who give each other a hard time only to hug seconds later. When one beelines for the piano, the others shout out requests. When another is overcome with hiccups, the cures — some helpful, some bizarre — zip around the choir room. Led by choral teacher Kristin Helming, the chamber choir is made up of the elite singers of the school, those who take music seriously. They’re the ones who practice during lunch, after school, in the hallways between classes, at church, at Read more…

The Charles County Public Schools (CCPS) redistricting committee plans to present two comprehensive elementary school rezoning options to the Board of Education and Superintendent Kimberly Hill at the Board’s April 4 meeting. Elementary school redistricting will create an attendance zone for a new elementary school, scheduled to open in September 2018 and located off Billingsley Road in White Plains. Additionally, it will expand the Dr. Samuel A. Mudd Elementary School attendance zone and balance student enrollment across the county as needed at all other elementary schools. Dr. Mudd is scheduled to undergo a complete renovation and expansion, starting next school Read more…

The Board of Education of Charles County is holding a public work session at 6 p.m., Monday, Feb. 27 in the boardroom at the Jesse L. Starkey Administration Building. The meeting will be televised live on the Charles County Public Schools (CCPS) website at ccboe.com and broadcast on Comcast Channel 96/Verizon FiOS Channel 12. The following is a meeting agenda and is subject to change. Call to order – 6 p.m. Pledge of Allegiance Public Forum Work session Policy 6000 series School Naming Committee report Action item Policy 6000 series Superintendent’s reappointment and contract approval Adjournment About CCPS Charles County Read more…