Morning Notes
Montgomery Students Are Failing Math Exams At High Rates, How Much Does It Matter? — Montgomery County Public Schools released data on its students’ high failure rates on math final exams, what some say is a result of students studying only to get the final exam grade they need to pass the course. In January, countywide stats show each non-honors math course except for Pre-Cal (48 percent) saw more than 50 percent of students get an E on the final exam. In January, 86 percent of Bridge to Algebra 2 students countywide failed the exam. [Washington Post]
Union Boycott, Protest Doesn’t Stop Money From Coming Into Local Democratic Party — A boycott and protest of the Montgomery County Democratic Central Committee Spring Ball meant some big names stayed away from the event, but it hasn’t hurt the party’s fundraising efforts. The group’s chairman said donations from people who did not attend the Ball have put the party over its $50,000 fundraising goal. [The Gazette]
Citizens Advisory Board To Talk Budget, Housing and Tenant Rights — The Western Montgomery County Citizens Advisory Board will meet tonight for its monthly meeting. Councilmember Roger Berliner (D-Bethesda) will give an update on the recently agreed upon FY14 budget. The Board will see a presentation on the county’s Housing Policy and discuss tenants’ rights. The meeting is open to the public and will run from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. at the Bethesda-Chevy Chase Regional Services Center (4805 Edgemoor Lane). [Bethesda-Chevy Chase Regional Services Center]
Share Your Bethesda, Chevy Chase, North Bethesda and White Flint Photos With Us — Contribute to the BethesdaNow.com Flickr pool to see your photo lead off our Morning Notes or to show us what’s going on in your community. [Flickr]
Flickr photo by daveandraina
Morning Notes
Maryland House Passes Gun Control Bill — The State Senate is expected to follow, giving Maryland perhaps the most sweeping gun control legislation in the wave of proposals being considered around the nation after the Newtown elementary school massacre. [Washington Post]
Choice Hotels Opening New Headquarters In Rockville — The international hotel chain is celebrating its move from Silver Spring to Rockville Town Center with tours of its new 190,000-square-foot headquarters. Choice says the move is helping to make the region the center of the hotel industry. Marriott is headquartered in Bethesda.
Walt Whitman Student Gets Spot On U.S. Maccabi Team — Josh Fried, a 17-year-old who plays center for the Vikings, was selected as part of the Junior U.S. Maccabi basketball team. He’ll play for the team when it travels to Israel in July for the Maccabiah games. [The Gazette]
Submit Your Photos On Flickr — Submit your photos of Bethesda, Chevy Chase and North Bethesda to our BethesdaNow.com Flickr pool. We regularly feature Flickr photos in the “Morning Notes” and other stories from around the area. [Flickr]
Flickr photo by thisisbossi
Introducing BethesdaNow.com’s Event Calendar
We frequently receive event announcements that we just can’t fit into a day’s worth of news.
One of our new site’s new features is an event calendar we hope you’ll find useful in promoting fundraisers, concerts, school-related activities or anything else the communities of Bethesda, Chevy Chase and North Bethesda should know about.
Here’s how it works:
Get to our event submission page by clicking the “Event Calendar” tab up top, click “submit your event,” and get started.
We encourage not-for-profit entities or others with free events to select the “Free Non-Profit” listing type. We do offer $20 listings that will appear more prominently in the calendar.
Please do take advantage of this new feature. As always, let us know if you have any questions by dropping us a line at desk@bethesdanow.com.
Welcome To The New BethesdaNow.com
Welcome to the new-look BethesdaNow.com. We hope you like what we’ve done with the place.
Among some new site features is an events calendar page where you can post events, forums for discussing whatever is on your mind, a real estate section with listings of for sale and for rent properties and image uploads in the comments section.
Please do feel free to kick the tires a little bit. Let us know in the comments section what bugs you find and what you think of the redesign.
Here are the technical glitches we are aware of and are working to fix:
- Top stories and pageviews aren’t visible.
- Some earlier polls and video might have been lost in the transition.
Thank you for your readership and support of BethesdaNow.com.
MCFRS Looking For Donated Cars To Assist In Training
The Montgomery County Fire and Rescue Service has the largest recruit class in its history and not enough vehicles to train it with, according to an announcement today.
MCFRS uses the vehicles to teach recruits and fire fighters how to respond to car collisions, which result in more than 600 fatalities a year throughout Maryland. So it’s asking for residents to consider donating old cars, tax deductible up to the Kelley Blue Book value. MCFRS can provide towing to its Public Service Training Academy in Rockville for free.
For more information or if you’re interested in donating, contact the Public Service Training Academy at 301-279-1834. Make sure to have a clear title on the car if you donate.
Image via MCFRS
Subscribe to Our Email Newsletter
Sometimes you don’t have time to check BethesdaNow.com during your busy workday. Or, perhaps you’d prefer to get all the day’s headlines at one time.
If either of those are true, consider subscribing to our daily “Afternoon Update” email newsletter. On most weekdays and some weekends when there’s breaking news, we’ll send a summary of articles from the past 24 hours. The email goes out around 4:00 p.m., just in time for the commute home.
To subscribe, fill out this short form. We won’t send you spam or sell your email address — ever — we promise.
Apology for Technical Problems
The BethesdaNow.com team would like to apologize for technical problems many readers encountered today (Thursday).
Due to extraordinarily high traffic on our sister site in Arlington, changes were made to our server that temporarily misdirected traffic intended for BethesdaNow.com. As a result, our email newsletter contained news from Arlington instead of Bethesda.
We regret the problems and will work to make sure they don’t happen again.
Welcome, Future Readers
You’re looking at an early, in-development version of the future BethesdaNow.com.
Check back soon for great local news coverage.
