Bates Middle School in Annapolis just received a federal grant that will buy teacher training for its new arts magnet. And at Meade High School, local business and community leaders have been writing the curriculum and organizing summer events for a homeland security program.

"I think this is going to be tremendously exciting," said Claire Louder, interim chairman of Meade's stakeholder committee. "If we can find something that makes that light bulb go on, that makes school interesting, those kids are going to come out excited and ready to learn."

The programs, along with North County High School's new Science, Technology, Engineering and Math, or STEM magnet, are the first of many that will be added to county high schools over the next few years. Starting the North County and Meade programs this year will cost the schools about $1.17 million, while a $666,000 federal grant will fund the Bates' arts program over the next four years, school officials said.

About 90 freshmen are enrolled in the inaugural homeland security class at Meade. All the students who applied were accepted, said Bill Sheppard, a Meade administrator who's organizing the program.

They'll take the regular ninth-grade curriculum, but their classes will be infused with ties to issues of national security. For example, a history lesson on the smallpox epidemic among American Indians might detour into a comparison with Saddam Hussein's chemical and biological weapons, Ms. Louder said.

Those lessons are being drawn up by the committee of business and community leaders, many who work in homeland security-related fields, such as health care, technology and security, in the Meade area.

The team is also formulating projects students will do outside of class as part of the program, said Kyle Sims, a global information system analyst who's on the committee.

The first project will be an online book club this summer. About 25 students will read "Code Orange," by Caroline B. Cooney, a young-adult book about bioterrorism. Students will discuss the book online through Blackboard software and Gaggle.net, a safe e-mail program for students, said Richard Burger, a school system employee on the team.

Five students in the program will go to the Public Service Academy Youth Conference in Washington, D.C., this week to learn about government and public-service careers, Mr. Burger said.

Phebe Ferguson, 14, said she signed up for the homeland-security program because it'll be a different kind of school experience.

"It's going to be a new twist," she said. "I wanted to do something to help the country, but I don't think the military is for me, so I thought (homeland security) would be the next best thing."

Erik Kerns, 13, said he thought the program might be a good way to get into a career.

"I heard about it and I thought later on in my future it'd be good for me to do," he said.

Meanwhile, officials at Bates Middle School have been celebrating a new grant they've been told will be coming through the U.S. Department of Education: a little more than half a million over four years to get their arts program off the ground, Ms. Bowen said.

That money will be used in part this week to send 12 teachers to the University of Maryland for training in how to integrate the arts into their classes, said Diane Bragdon, principal at Bates.

Because the Bates program originally was scheduled to begin in 2010, it isn't as far along as Meade's. The start date at Bates was moved up after city leaders earlier lobbied Superintendent Kevin M. Maxwell to open it this fall, in part to coincide with the creation of an arts district in Annapolis.

Eventually Bates, like Meade, will have a team of business and community leaders working on curriculum and project ideas. Already, organizations Maryland Hall and ArtWalk have pledged their involvement. And in 2009, the program will open fully as a magnet, pulling to Bates about 100 arts-oriented students from middle schools in central and south county, Ms. Bragdon said.

A kick-off event is planned for mid-October, Ms. Bragdon said. It will showcase some student work and an art installation on the fence that connects the two school buildings at Bates.

"Our faculty are very, very excited," she said.