Published: March 1, 2000

Ciao, Chalkboard

Now that the dust has settled on the renovations at Bethesda Elementary in a Maryland suburb of Washington, D.C., the school has floor-to-ceiling windows, rows of teal and turquoise Macintosh computers, and a state-of-the-art infirmary.

What it doesn't have is chalkboards.

The school's blackboards have been ripped out and replaced with cool silver-gray dry-erase boards-sometimes known as whiteboards or markerboards. "We have [a dry-erase board] in every classroom," principal Anne Gavin says proudly. "The teachers were anxious to have them, and they eliminate the problem of chalk-dust allergies. We don't worry about the dust getting into the computer keyboards...