Silver Spring Softball Teams Ready For First Pitch Of State Tournament

The first round is slated to begin Thursday.

Maryland state lacrosse tournament games got underway Wednesday, and local varsity softball teams kick off their 2013 run to the state championship Thursday. The Maryland Public Secondary Schools Athletic Association announced the brackets Tuesday for its 2013 softball tournament, and a number of local schools are in the dance: Montgomery Blair High School, Northwood High School, Springbrook High School, Paint Branch High School and Blake High School. 4A West Bracket 4A North Bracket The full 4A bracket can be viewed here. 3A West Bracket The full 3A bracket can be viewed here. Add photos of your local softball team to the gallery and wish the girls good luck in the comments!

• Photos (3)

U.S. News Ranks Blair High School No. 10 in Maryland

Seven Montgomery County schools included in the Top 10

U.S. News has ranked Silver Spring's Montgomery Blair High School in the Top 10 of public high schools in Maryland in its 2013 report of the best high schools nationwide. Blair was given a national rank of No. 247 and awarded a gold medal.  There are 2,827 students enrolled at Blair, and the Advanced Placement participation rate is 64 percent, U.S. News reported. Seven of the top 10 schools in Maryland are in Montgomery County: Blair, Winston Churchill, Walt Whitman, Poolseville, Wootton, Richard Montgomery and Bethesda-Chevy Chase. Read more about the rankings: A full list of the best high schools in Maryland How U.S. News calculated the 2013 best high schools

• Videos (1)

Blair High School Junior Wins $10,000 in Essay Contest

Read the winners' responses to this question: “How can the country readily and realistically tackle growing income disparity?”

Isabel E. Hendrix-Jenkins, a junior at Montgomery Blair High School in Silver Spring, has won a $10,000 scholarship for her essay about growing income disparity, Montgomery County Public Schools announced Monday. She is one of four MCPS students selected as winners in the 2012 Junior Achievement Essay Competition. Hendrix-Jenkins placed second in the state. The competition, coordinated by Junior Achievement of Greater Washington, asked high school students from Virginia, Maryland and Washington, DC to compete for scholarships by writing a 1,000- to 1,500-word essay in response to the following question: “How can the country readily and realistically tackle growing income disparity?” One of the ways Hendrix-Jenkins suggests is to bolster …

• Photos (1)

Report: Montgomery Blair High Student Tasered By School Police Officer

A 16-year-old girl was sent to the hospital Thursday after the stun gun left a dart in her skin, The Washington Post reported.

A 16-year-old girl was sent to the hospital Thursday after a Taser dart was left in her skin by a Montgomery County police officer placed at Montgomery Blair High, The Washington Post reported.  The officer, part of the school resource officer (SRO) program that pairs uniformed officers with high schools in Montgomery County, said that he told the girl to go inside after spotting her sitting outside of the school, the newspaper wrote. Police allege that the girl responded by punching the officer, who then used a Taser on her.  The girl had to be hospitalized to remove a Taser dart that was left in her skin, The Post reported. A spokesperson for Montgomery County Public Schools was vague about whether there is a protocol by the system for …

•  6 Comments
• Photos (1)

Silver Spring Student Docs to Air on C-SPAN This Week

Seventeen students from Eastern Middle School and nine students from Montgomery Blair High School placed in the network's national competition.

What’s the most important issue the president should consider in 2013? That's a question few could answer in just a few minutes, but 26 students from Silver Spring schools managed to not only answer, but do so in short documentaries, some of which will air on C-SPAN beginning this Friday.  The students, 17 8th graders from Eastern Middle and nine 10th graders from Montgomery Blair High, all placed in the network's StudentCam 2013, a national student documentary competition.  Lauren Frost and Camille Torfs-Leibman's original documentary on water pollution, "Fishable, Swimmable, Drinkable," is first up, set to air on C-SPAN this Friday, April 5 at 6:50 a.m. The girls, both 8th graders at Eastern Middle, won third prize and will win $750 for …

• Videos (1)

Reports: Blair High Newspaper Strapped for Cash

The student-run newspaper needs to raise $6,000 to print its last issues of the school year.

Silver Chips, Montgomery Blair High School's monthly student newspaper, is scrambling to find money to publish the last three issues of this school year, Bethesda magazine's Education Matters blog reports.  The paper, which exists on a combination of advertising revenue, donations and a small stipend from the school district, is $6,000 short the money it needs to finish out the school year. That's money that faculty advisor Joseph Fanning is brainstorming how to produce, the magazine reported. He said that he's considering amending the advertising model to give access to both the print and the online version.  Silver Chips isn't the first Montgomery County high school newspaper that has had to get creative to continue printing. Bethesda …

•  8 Comments
• Photos (1)

Blair High's Rapping Teacher Hits National Spotlight

A math teacher in Silver Spring by day, a rapper extolling the virtues of mathematics by night, Jacob Scott's story has traveled across the country.

The story of a high school math teacher in Silver Spring who makes rap videos to help students learn complicated algebra principles, using the alter ego "2 Pi," has spread far past Montgomery County's borders and well into international waters.  Jacob Scott, who teaches at Montgomery Blair High, gained acclaim for his work with students who aren't native English speakers in 2011, winning the NAACP Excellence in Education Teacher of the Year Award and being featured in local media and even on billboards, according to Silver Chips, Blair's student newspaper.  But when The Washington Post took notice of his rap videos on YouTube last November, the inspiring and unconventional teacher's work went worldwide, including features on national media…

•  1 Comment
• Videos (1)

State Champion Coach Will Lead Blair High Football Team

Dr. Andrew Fields was announced as the school's head football coach.

A football coach with 13 years of experience joined Montgomery Blair High's program, a letter to parents announced Jan. 23. Dr. Andrew Fields, most recently of Gaithersburg High, but also a former teacher at Churchill, Poolesville and Northwest High Schools, has taken his teams to the state football championship twice. He's earned one state title and has gone to the state playoffs nine times.  The Gazette newspaper reported that former coach Jeff Seals was fired in early December. 

• Photos (1)

Montgomery Blair High Fires Football Coach

The Gazette reports that Jeff Seals is out after nine years.

2 Pi: Montgomery Blair Math Teacher Recognized for Rap Alter Ego

Jake Scott creates math-themed rap videos to inspire high school students.

His boss calls him a "dream." A student said his work is "genius." Donning a baseball cap and an athletic suit, Jake Scott, a math teacher at Montgomery Blair High in Silver Spring, simply refers to himself as "2 Pi" in the rap videos that he creates to teach students complicated theories.  "Triangle Experts," was uploaded to YouTube in December 2011 and has over 9,000 views. It features Scott, aka 2 Pi, rapping a catchy "180 degrees of fun/We solve triangles one-by-one" and a guest appearance by a student who raps in Spanish.  Scott was recently profiled by the Washington Post where everyone from Principal Renay Johnson to the local branch of the NAACP praised his creativity and effort in teaching students. From the Post: The rap videos …

• Videos (1)