Editor's note: The Baltimore Sun Newspaper in Education program and the fifth-grade teachers at Rippling Woods Elementary School in Glen Burnie devised a workshop to allow students to question a county official, news-conference style.

Superintendent Larry Lorton agreed to be questioned.

The students selected 12 classmates to act as reporters: Terry Allen, Joe Bolly, Jeff Carter, Dana Hyden, T. J. Lowe, Tim Martin, JodiMcGurk, Nikki Petagno, Talese Pratt, Mandy Sheets, Carla Rader and Eric Strauss.

The reporters spent several weeks developing questions and practicing them. On Wednesday, Lorton and the students assumed their roles:

Q: In Prince George's County, they have a dress code.Do you think we'll ever have one in Anne Arundel County, too?

A: Well, the fact of the matter is we do have a dress code. The dress code specifies that you have to dress decently. So that means you can'twear short shorts, you can't wear tank tops, you can't wear T-shirtswith nasty things written on them. So basically you have to come to school dressed decently.

Q: How do you know if a teacher is qualified to teach a certain grade?

A: There are two things we have to look at. One of the things we have to look at is down on paper. A person has to do certain kinds of things to be eligible to teach. They have to go to college for four years, at least. They have to have a bachelor's degree, and there are college courses they have to study. Forexample, your teachers have to know reading but they also have to know how to teach reading.

Once a person gets near the end of their college career they spend six months to a year practicing and learning from a qualified teacher. At then at the end of that period, if allgoes well, then they have to take a couple of tests in the state of Maryland. If they pass those test then they become eligible to apply for a job and take a job.

The second thing that has to happen is we interview. Your principal interviews. So Mr. (Norbert) Paga will interview 10 or 15 or 20 people and then he'll ask them all kinds of questions about what they know and what their philosophy is about teaching children and he'll make a personal judgment about personality andhow much a person likes of loves kids.

So one thing's on paper that anyone can read and the other part is something a principal feels that he or she wants in their school.

Q: How do you feel about teachers' salaries. Do you think they're too big or too little?A: That'san easy question. I don't think a very good teacher gets paid nearlyenough. Teaching, in my opinion, is one of the most important professions in the world. When you're in a classroom with a teacher that maybe hard on you -- not all great teachers are necessarily easy on youbut they demand and get the best out of you -- there's no way to puta price on how valuable that person is. And I someday before I leavethis business I hope we find a way to pay great teachers the way we pay physicians and very successful attorneys.

Q: Have your responsibilities caused problems for you at home?

A: That's an excellent question. I don't think in all my years anyone has ever asked that question. No it really hasn't, but I know that having a boy and a girl . . . I think it was harder on them than it was on me. Growing up thedaughter or son of a superintendent like when it snows and all the kids think the superintendent should close school and he doesn't? Well, when my son or daughter gets to school those days it's kind of tough.

My family has been very understanding. They know my job demendsa lot of my time on nights and weekends, but at the same time I think they feel pretty good about what I do because I have devoted my life to children, and I think they like that.

Q: Why are you going toconsider cutting band in elementary school?

A: I'm glad you raised that. There's no consideration to cut band. It's a terrible rumor that has gotten started. I don't know how it got started and I don't know how to stop it.

We are going to face some difficult decisions this coming year. We are going to have about the same amount of moneyto spend next year on 65,000 students across Anne Arundel County as we do this year. Everything is going up in price. We pay teachers more, the pads you are holding in your hands and paper and textbooks youuse every day are going to cost more next year than this year.

Therefore, something's going to have to go because we can't pay for everything that we had. So there are probably going to be changes eitherin the number of personnel that we can have. We may not be able to hire everyone back that we want to or we may not be able to replace everybody who leaves. Or there may be some programs changed, activitiesthat you have access to.

I don't have any idea what those things are right now, but as I told the Board of Education last month, despite the popular rumor that elementary music is going to go, it will bea desperate day before I recommend to the board that we do that.

Q: Would you consider using lockers instead of tote trays?

A: Yes I would. I think that every student really needs a space of his or her own, it's a matter of privacy. Lockers are obviously a lot more expensive, but if we had the money to do everything we wanted to do, yes, I think it would be appropriate.

Q: Why don't the middle schoolshave any sports teams?

A: One of the reasons is very practical and that is sports are expensive and there are all kinds of community and civic organizations that sponsor sports programs. So it's something we've felt we haven't really needed to get into.

The second reason we don't do it is philosophic. There's just a basic belief about the way middle schools ought to be run that should downplay competition between students and encourage and promote the involvement of everystudent in some kind of activity. Sports tends to emphasize the competition and winning and losing rather than the involvement. So we just try to get every middle school student involved in some kind of intermural activity but not for the sake of competition. We have plenty of that every day.

superintendent Q: What do you think of having school all year?

A: You're probably not going to like the answer you're going to get, but I think year-round school makes a whole lot ofsense. There are ways to schedule schools where you'd be in school for 45 days, like a month and a half, and be off 15 days. Or you'd be in school nine weeks and then off three weeks.

One of the losses would be that long summer break. But, of course, one of the things youwouldn't lose is all the stuff you'd forgotten finishing one year and getting ready for the new one.

From a school administrator's point of view, it would be a great benefit to taxpayers is that we wouldn't have to spend a whole lot of money on additional schools. If kidsare in school for 45 days and off for 15 days, then not all of our 65,000 students would be in school at the same time, only three-fourths of them would be at school at any given time. It gets very complicated, but that's the way the schedule would work.

Now, if you ask me what the chances are of that happening I would say slim and none. Most parents and virtually every student I know hates the idea. So until there's a whole lot of public support for making a change, it's not likely to happen.

Q: If you live close to one school, why do youhave to go to another one?

A: We have 75 elementary schools in the county and everyone has a boundary that separates one school from another. When that boundary gets drawn, someone is going to end up in a school that doesn't seem to make any sense. But somehow that line has to be drawn.

Q: Are there any decisions you've made that you would change today?

A: Yeah, listen, nobody's perfect. I've been involved in a situation where we have at the high school expanded the curriculum to the point where there are 307 courses that we offer. I mean, that's a lot of courses. I don't think that offering that many courses to students serves them particularly well because students can elect a course rather than what he should be taking that will be most useful to them when they get out of high school. So I've been involved in those kinds of decisions that after I've seen how they workedout, I wish I could take them back and start over again.

I've hired teachers who were a mistake. I've hired principals who were a mistake. On the other hand I've made some wonderful decisions, too, that I'm very proud of.

Q: How do you go about getting all the necessities for my school?

A: It's really quite simple and easy. Your principal and teachers tell me what's needed here and we take all of those needs and add them to the 74 similar requests from the rest of the elementary schools. We add them all up and that makes up the budget that I submit to the county council.

My job is to sell the county executive and the county council on the reasons why they ought to put enough money in there to take care of all the needs your teachers saythey have.

So the reality is your principal and teachers do all the hard work in sorting out what they need. And my job is to get fourcouncil votes. So my job is relatively easy, but I'm not as successful as I'd like to be.

Q: Why do some county schools have closed classrooms and others have open classrooms?

A: That's another example of a decision I'd do over again. There are 16,000 school districts in America and all of those school systems build schools and remodel school and we all hire architects to design schools. Architects go through these phases. We went through a phase about 20 years ago when architects wanted to build schools without walls. Almost every school in America that was built 20 years ago was built without walls.

Sofor about the last 10 years, we've been making every effort to put walls up where walls didn't exist and to make schools look more traditional.

Some students can handle open space and some can't.

I personally have no preference. But there are some parents and students who feel very strongly one way or the other. I think the real issue is that we carve out as much space as we can so that every student is as comfortable as he or she can be.

Q: How do you decide how much money goes to each school?

A: What we do is count the number of students in the school and we multiply it by $123 for materials and supplies and whatever that figure is, that's what Rippling Woods gets. So every student gets the same amount of money.

Q: Who did you lookup to when you were in fifth grade?

A: I probably looked up to mydad more than anybody else.

When I was a fifth-grader, I was really into pro sports. So athletes were kind of my heroes as a boy. But the person who had the strongest influence on my life was my dad.

Q: Why don't we have school nurses?

A: Because we can't get them funded by county government.

Q: Can we assume that health room volunteers can provide enough medical help?

A: No, you can't. We have a plan that will put health professionals in everyone of our 125 schools and all we need is the money to do it.

Q: Why do some schools have seat belts on the buses and we don't?

A: Putting seat belts on school buses is one of those issues on which there is no agreement.If I were to go out and find 100 experts and line them up, we would probably get 50 who say you need seat belts and 50 who would say you don't.

Q: How much money do you spend on vandalism?

A: We spendsomewhere in the vicinity of $300,000 repairing vandalism. That includes broken windows, obscene paintings on walls and bathrooms. It's abig business.

Q: Why can't you hire a night guard?

A: The reality is that a lot of the vandalism doesn't happen at night or on the weekends. We tried night watchmen . . . but the fact of the matter isthat any person who is determined to vandalize a school is going to do it no matter how many night watchmen you have.

The county and city police have been extremely cooperative, and we have been very, very successful in catching people inside schools on nights and weekends.

Q: Do any schools give a better education than others?

A: I don't think there's a school that's any better than any other. But I think what's more the case is that each student matches up better with certain teachers than they do others.

Q: Have you thought about putting more metal detectors in schools?

A: Yeah, we thought aboutit, but to tell you the truth we are very very fortunate in that we have not had the problems other school districts have had, including some of our neighbors.

When a school system starts doings things like that, it can aggravate or make a situation worse. Students who might not think about carrying something into school that they shouldn't might do so because of an "I'll show you" attitude.

I don't wantto do it unless it's necessary because once you start down that road, you don't come back.

Q: What standards are used for cafeteria food?

A: We have one set of standards for all of our cafeterias. Butthat's not to say each cafeteria isn't a little bit different . . . We have 125 cafeterias, and they're all different because the people who run them are different. If you're having problems with the quality of the food, you should talk to your principal.