Arundel School Closes Achievement Gap

The new principal launched a schoolwide campaign to raise the number of students enrolled for federally subsidized meals, offering popsicles to those who turned in paperwork. That kept the students fed and, perhaps more important, it triggered more funding from the federal government.

Larkin was able to double the number of staff members assigned to provide extra help to low-scoring students. She launched before- and after-school programs for low performers.

She hired teachers carefully, building an energetic young staff willing to work with the new superintendent and his countywide curriculum changes, which didn't sit well in some schools. She recalled "literally praying after every interview, hoping I'd hired the right person."

Larkin sensed that teachers and students were jittery about the all-important statewide exam, which, together with the broader federal mandates, had placed considerable stress on schools.

"If you get them all stressed out, they're not going to do well on tests," she said. "They're children."

Larkin sat down with every fourth- and fifth-grade student to go over their scores from the previous year. Then, as the spring testing date approached, Larkin trotted out "Ayap," another stuffed dog, this one named for the federal goal of adequate yearly progress.

"I would walk around with him, and Ayap would kiss people -- Ayap wants you to do just a little bit better than last year ," Larkin said, lapsing into stuffed-dog-speak.

Students who take the statewide exam are scored at one of three levels: advanced, signifying "outstanding accomplishment"; proficient, corresponding to "realistic and rigorous" achievement; or basic, indicating more work is needed. Students who score in the two higher levels are considered proficient, essentially the make-or-break standard under No Child Left Behind.

In 2003, eight of 25 black students in North Glen's third grade rated proficient in reading. The next year, 11 of 18 showed proficiency; and this year, 15 of 16.

Today, North Glen's teachers, most of them hired by Larkin, enjoy the sort of bond that comes from singing karaoke, kidnapping the principal's stuffed dog and plotting academic strategy together in a school with just 250 students.

The parents typify the changing face of this town, once strictly a Baltimore suburb, now a part of the Baltimore-Washington-Annapolis sprawl.

Glen Burnie is home to a mix of state government and utility workers, mid-level professionals and the self-employed, longtime residents and new arrivals, living in tiny ranch homes and townhouses and apartments in communities called Cromwell Fountain and Pleasantville.

Brian McElroy, working his BlackBerry at the family night, is a member of Glen Burnie's burgeoning black professional class. The corporate consultant moved his family from Howard County four years ago for "a two-car-garage townhome, convenient to the airport, convenient to all the major highways."

A revamped mall on Route 2, anchored by a new Target store, attests that Glen Burnie is changing. "It has to," McElroy said.

Daughter Ameena is in the second grade at North Glen. Son Amir is in kindergarten. McElroy is already thinking about college.

He and his wife chose North Glen after reviewing its scores. "The school's made a really big turnaround," he said.