Congratulations! You did it! Your child has completed one year at the school of your choice. It seems like yesterday that you won the lottery, enabling you to receive an opportunity scholarship. Yours was one of the fortunate families chosen. If you remember, over 20,000 Baltimorean children applied for an opportunity like yours - and we had fewer than 500 spaces.

Now that the first year of the program is over, I am pleased to report that very few families dropped out. We started last fall with 421 children, and ended up this spring with 398. That's a reduction of only 5.5 percent.

By now, the re-registration process is almost complete and your little one will be starting his or her second year this September. The board of trustees and the staff at CSF Baltimore hope you have a safe and restful summer. If you are in the neighborhood, please stop by and spend a few minutes with us. We'd love to hear about your experiences with your new school.

The CSF Baltimore board of trustees voted in the spring to offer applications to scholarship recipients' siblings entering kindergarten this upcoming fall. There were quite a number who have joined the program in this manner. They will be attending school with their brothers and sisters. All told we added 30 students.

On the other end of the spectrum, we have a total of 29 students who are graduating to high school. The schools they have chosen are: Ner Israel Rabbinical College, Institute of Notre Dame, Archbishop Curley, Mercy High School, Our Lady of Mt. Carmel, St. Frances Academy and Shalheves High School. Congratulations to our graduates! Remember, for high school, the scholarship cap is $2,300, not $1,500.

Apart from the siblings of current scholarship recipients, we are not accepting applications for scholarships at this time. The board of trustees hopes to expand the program and is searching for new funding. Until that happens, mention to your friends that funding is limited and they must be placed on a wait list. Sorry!