Principal Sylvester Conyers could only imagine the traffic that would clog Eleanor Roosevelt High School's parking lots when the annual fall concert and Spirit Week hall-decorating were scheduled for the same evening.

But all he had to do was mention his concerns to the Prince George's County school's Air Force Junior ROTC unit. In no time, dozens of cadets had volunteered to stand in the cold to direct traffic.

"You might say that's a little thing, that I could have gotten anyone to do that," Conyers said yesterday in a meeting with Carroll County school officials who are considering incorporating JROTC programs into at least two of their high schools. "But these students did it. They did it in uniforms. And they did it with a lot of class. They like being a part of something positive, and that's one of the things that this program brings to our school."

Carroll school board members will consider Eleanor Roosevelt High's experiences today when they discuss the JROTC programs at their monthly meeting.

Although the Air Force is unlikely to expand its programs this year in Maryland - 18 high schools in the state, from Baltimore to Bladensburg, have Air Force JROTC programs - school officials want to decide whether they support adding the programs to the high school curriculum to offer students leadership training and more career-oriented classes. That way, schools would be ready when a spot opens.

Winters Mill High outside Westminster and Century High in Eldersburg have applied for Air Force JROTC.

"It's not a mini-boot camp where everyone who graduates is expected to join the military," said board member Thomas G. Hiltz, a Naval Academy graduate and Naval Reserve commander. "They promote leadership and character, they give you a broader picture of national security and a democratic society, and they expose you to things that you might not ever be exposed to unless you decided to enter the military."

Hiltz asked the schools superintendent to look into the junior military programs about a year ago after a retired Coast Guard officer mentioned to him that the county's public school system had none. He also helped organize yesterday's visit to Eleanor Roosevelt High, where school officials and students delivered an unqualified endorsement of the merits of JROTC.

"Being bright and being successful in school is one component of ROTC," Conyers, the Eleanor Roosevelt principal, told board members Gary W. Bauer, Susan Holt and Hiltz. "But being a leader, getting people to follow you, making people understand the unit is more important than themselves and getting people to depend on you in critical situations are very important components of ROTC."

Conyers seemed genuinely puzzled by the Carroll board members' repeated attempts to draw out anything but glowing recommendations from the principal.

They asked about the cost to the school; Conyers was ready with an answer.

"If something is beneficial," he told them, "I think you try to partner with people and I think that addresses the cost." Besides, with the Department of Defense splitting the cost of instructors' salaries, the program's price tag is "negligible," he said.

They asked about pros and cons - "and we know every program has cons," Hiltz said. Conyers mentioned only the risk of clashes between a school's administrators and the military instructors if the program and school are not well-paired.

"Let me try this a different way," Hiltz said. "If you were starting Junior ROTC, what would you do differently?"

After pausing for a moment, Conyers said, "I'd give them more space" in the school.

The Air Force has JROTC programs in every state but Idaho and Montana, in Puerto Rico and in eight other countries.

The Army and Navy have similar programs - including 26 in Maryland schools - but Carroll schools chose to pursue the Air Force program because it was the most likely to expand, said Gregory Eckles, the school system's high schools director.

Even so, when Carroll school officials first inquired, they were told that it would likely be at least five years before the county could offer the program, which includes uniforms, computers and curriculum materials for instruction in leadership and social sciences through their application to aerospace subjects.

The timeline might have been accelerated after Air Force officials visited Winters Mill and Century, where they found "programming and facilities [that] matched very closely with what they're interested in," Eckles said.

Like Eleanor Roosevelt in Prince George's County, Carroll County's Winters Mill and Century high schools are divided into career academies. Introduced to the county last year when Century opened, the academies are similar to a school or college within a large university.

The board will meet at 5 p.m. today at the school district's administrative offices on North Court Street in Westminster.