Schools Superintendent Sydney L. Cousin and the county Board of Education have begun negotiations to renew his contract.

Cousin's contract does not expire until July, but state regulations required him to inform the board by the end of January whether he wanted to continue leading the school system. The board was then required to decide by the end of this month whether to renew his contract. The board unanimously approved this month entering into negotiations with Cousin this month.

Cousin and the board have until the end of his current contract to work out the details of his extension.

"I had long conversations with myself if I wanted to serve another four years," Cousin said. "After contemplating the direction I wanted to follow, I felt that I had some unfinished business here."

Before announcing his intention to continue, Cousin, 62, had been mulling his future for weeks.

A desire to eliminate the student achievement gap, particularly among minority students, was one of Cousin's main reasons for seeking an extension, he said.

Negotiations are in the early stages, and Cousin declined to discuss the details involved in the contract.

"It just started," he said.

Students score well on science test

Howard County's fifth- and eighth-graders scored better than those in the rest of the state on the science portion of the Maryland School Assessments, school officials announced.

Seventy-eight percent of fifth-graders and 82.8 percent of eighth-graders in Howard scored proficient or above on the test, compared with the state average of 60 percent for fifth-graders and 61 percent for eighth-graders.

The results are from tests administered in April. The test was significant because it was the first time the science MSA had been administered and the first time that school systems had the option to offer an MSA test online.

Howard allowed half of its students to forgo the pencil-and-paper method and take the test online. One-third of those who took the test statewide took it online.

This month, Maryland State Department of Education officials reported no difference in scores between the online and paper test scores.

"We are extremely pleased with the performance of our students on this first administration of the science MSA," Cousin said in a statement. "And while these percentages are similar to those we see in reading and mathematics, there are several reasons why the results are quite remarkable."

Unlike other MSAs, the science assessment covers three years of content, Cousin said. The fifth-grade version covers material from grades three through five, and the eighth-grade assessment covers the middle school science curriculum. The reading and mathematics MSAs cover content from one grade level, Cousin said.

"Success in other subjects is very dependent on a student's ability to read and process information," Cousin's statement said. "Our teachers have made reading a priority across content areas and it is making a difference in other subjects."

No tainted meat in Howard schools

The Howard school system was not among the seven in Maryland that received meat included in the largest beef recall in history.

The State Department of Education released last week a list of school systems that received meat from the tainted supply. They are Anne Arundel, Baltimore, Carroll, St. Mary's, Worcester, Wicomico and Prince George's counties. It is unknown whether the meat made it into school cafeterias.

Last year, the Allegany, Prince George's, St. Mary's, Montgomery, Worcester, Wicomico and Baltimore county systems received and served questionable meat, as did Baltimore's.

School system food-service administrators learned from the State Department of Education's commodity section that Howard schools did not receive any of the questionable beef, county schools spokeswoman Patti Caplan said.

Of the 143 million pounds of beef from Westland/Hallmark Meat Co. that was recalled Feb. 17, about 37 million pounds had gone to school lunch programs and federal nutrition programs since October 2006, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

john-john.williams@baltsun.com