Magnets Attract Large Numbers of Students

Kelly Wojciechowski thought her options for a health care career were limited to being a doctor or a nurse until she participated in a summer camp last year. Thanks to that camp, she learned about occupational therapy and discovered she liked it.

Now the 13-year-old from Severn hopes 's new BioMedical Allied Health magnet program to which she was accepted last week will expand her horizons further as she learns more about her possible career path.

This is the first year for the program at Glen Burnie, and 185 eighth-graders from around the county applied for the 100 spots, said Chuck Yocum, a demographer for the county schools system who is helping set up Glen Burnie's program at the request of Maureen McMahon, assistant superintendent of advanced studies and programs.

Magnet programs offer highly specialized study in specific areas that combine academics with job shadowing and experiences with professionals in those fields.

Being centrally located in the county and having access to health care workers at hospitals in Glen Burnie, Annapolis, Columbia and Baltimore—not to mention several other fields like phlebotomy and physical therapy—could have been part of the appeal of Glen Burnie's program, said Betty Golibart, who will serve as its facilitator.

"I think a lot of kids and their parents saw we could draw from experience in that field and get them into the field as soon as possible," she said.

The schools system has magnets in the following areas: the Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) programs at and South River high schools; the IB Middle Years Programme-Diploma Programme at ; the IB Middle Years Programme at Annapolis and MacArthur middle schools and ; and the Performing and Visual Arts magnet program at Bates and Brooklyn Park middle schools.

The two STEM programs were the only others to have lotteries to determine their  classes.

Glen Burnie's program will expand year by year; that is, the incoming freshmen this fall are next year's sophomores, and the program will admit a new freshman class, Yocum said. In four years, this year's freshmen will be the first to graduate.

An eighth-grader at , Kelly said she was excited to be able to attend the high school she would have attended anyway.

"I knew there was a big list. I wasn't sure I could get in, so I was excited," she said.

Her mother, Robin Wojciechowski, said she also was thrilled her daughter would gain knowledge that could give her a leg up for college with college-preparatory studies and real-world experience.

"I have an older daughter who went there and didn't have this opportunity," she said, adding Kelly "can have a skill and head to college and have a head start on everyone else."

North County's STEM program also has a first—this is the first year it will have a senior class, said Renee Stout, its facilitator. Seventy incoming freshmen from Millersville and the communities north were selected in the lottery.

"I think a lot of our students like it because of the exposure to higher level math and are exposed to PBL—that is, project based learning—and community partnerships," she said.

With North County's proximity to Baltimore Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport, corporations like Northrup Grumman and Ciena and nearby business parks in Linthicum, its draw as a STEM school is clear, Stout said.

"To be a STEM school is a good opportunity. We have good partnerships," she said.

STEM students are mixed in with the general population for their core classes in non-STEM subjects, but have higher-level science and math classes as well as some distance learning opportunities, Stout said.

"I think it's going to raise the bar for all the kids," she said. "Our classes are so rigorous; everyone benefits from having STEM here."

Glen Burnie's will be integrated similarly, Golibart said. Students are asked to complete a year, but if they find it too demanding, they can switch back to their home school and receive credit for the classes they've completed, she said.

Golibart said she doesn't expect too many to do that, however.

"The magnet program will attract students who want to succeed and will work hard to do so," she said.