Although Monday was the first day teachers were back at Dunloggin Middle School after the summer break, they didn't spend much time in the building.

About 60 Dunloggin teachers, all wearing black and red Dunloggin polo shirts, piled into two school buses Aug. 18 to visit some of the neighborhoods served by the school and to meet some of the parents and students who live there.

This was the first time teachers at the Ellicott City school have gone on a day-long bus tour of the community, Dunloggin principal Cher Jones said. Jones proposed the tour because the school was redistricted in recent years and has several new teachers.

"I wanted to take teachers out to see the new areas we acquired," she said. "... It's the first time we've done this kind of huge community outreach."

Schools spokeswoman Patti Caplan said she could only remember two or three other schools holding such tours.

The tour took the Dunloggin teachers into various apartment complexes and townhouse neighborhoods along the Route 40 corridor in Ellicott City. Along the way, the teachers made several stops, including the Hilltop neighborhood, the Brunswick bowling alley on Route 40 and Rita's Italian Ice on St. John's Lane, to meet and mingle with families before students return to school Monday, Aug. 25.

Jones said she sees the bus tour as a way to build relationships between teachers and the community.

"It's knowing the learner and knowing where the learner is coming from," she added.

Alan Brigida, who has taught eighth-grade English and pre-algebra at Dunloggin for four years, said the tour helped to better acquaint him with the school community. He said one of his coworkers took him on a quick drive through some of Dunloggin's neighborhoods last summer, but Monday's bus tour was the first time he had the opportunity to stop and meet residents.

"It's nice to be in the neighborhoods where the kids are from, putting faces and places together," he said.

Cheryl Sinclair, vice president of the school's PTA, was one of the parents who greeted the teachers at their first stop at the Wal-Mart on Northridge Road. Sinclair and her son Jeffrey, who will be an eighth-grader at Dunloggin this year, served glasses of lemonade to the teachers as they chatted with them.

Sinclair said that the event was a good way to meet her son's teachers.

"They saw my face," she added. "It's a great way to network."

Sinclair's son Jeffrey also enjoyed the event, he said.

"I just wanted to meet my teachers and get them to know me so I'm not just a face in the crowd," he said.

Yonetta Johnson, a Hilltop resident who has an eighth-grader attending the school this year, helped to prepare and serve lunch to the teachers and neighborhood residents at the Tiber Hudson building on Mt. Ida Drive, the second stop on the tour.

Johnson said the lunch was a "nice, relaxed informal setting to talk to the teachers and get ready for the first day."

Dawn Hardy, a health teacher at the school, said the bus tour enabled her to meet some parents, catch up with some of her students and hear about their summer activities.

"It's been really fun," she said. "... I thought it was a good way to build a connection with the community."

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