Governor Hogan Announces Every County School System is Authorized to Open, MCPS Responds
Earlier today Governor Hogan announced that every county school system in Maryland is now fully authorized to begin safely reopening, as a result of health metrics across the state.
Zoom, the communications technology company used by many school systems to deliver virtual learning, acknowledged issues that led to many teachers being unable to start or join Zoom meetings this morning.
At 9:50am they issued an update stating that the issue had been identified and that the company is working on a fix.
Michael Ealy, then known as Michael Brown, graduated from Springbrook High School and grew up in Silver Spring (later attending the University of Maryland).
The former Blue Devil had his breakout role in Barbershop, and later starred in 2 Fast 2 Furious, About Last Night, Think Like a Man 1 and 2, The Perfect Guy, and much more.
Sarah Cooper, best known for her lip-syncing videos of President Trump on TikTok, has landed a Netflix special.
Cooper moved to Rockville at age 3 and graduated from Magruder High School; she then attended the University of Maryland, College Park. Cooper was born in Jamaica.
MoCo Health Officer hopes for low-moderate COVID-19 transmission before non-public schools reopen
Dr. Travis Gayles referred to the Centers for Disease Control guidelines for low to moderate COVID transmission—between eight and 32 daily new cases—in a press conference last week. MoCo currently averages 95 daily new cases, and has been above 32 average daily new cases since March 29.
Reemphasizing the need to protect the health and safety of Montgomery County residents as well as parents, students, teachers and staff from the spread of COVID-19, County Health Officer Dr. Travis Gayles today announced that he has rescinded his health order that prohibited nonpublic schools from opening for in-person instruction until after Oct. 1, 2020. The decision was made due to the new policy announced yesterday by the State Department of Health prohibiting the blanket closure of nonpublic schools.
Today’s new Health Officer Directive and Order regarding public, private and independent schools, dated Aug. 7, 2020, is effective immediately and rescinds the order dated Aug 5, 2020.
Hogan reverses order for MoCo private schools to move online
The governor issued an emergency order today that grants private and parochial schools the primary authority to decide whether to open in person this fall. On Friday, MoCo Health Officer Travis Gayles had ordered private schools to remain only online until Oct. 1.
Private schools closed until October 1
Montgomery County Health Officer Dr. Travis Gayles issued a press release July 31 prohibiting all private schools in the area from re-opening for in-person instruction until October 1.
MoCo businesses receive approximately $2.5 billion in federal COVID-19 relief funds
17,323 MoCo businesses received loans from the Small Business Association’s Paycheck Protection Program (PPP). Congress passed the PPP in early April to boost small business damaged by the pandemic.
This past Monday, June 29, the Montgomery County Board of Education voted to expedite the process of renaming Col. E. Brooke Lee Middle School. A decision will be made by November 10, 2020.
In addition, Board members proposed three options for possible namesakes:
Three alumni of Springbrook High School (Khadijah Adamu, Sumaiya DeLane, and Samiza Palmer) have created an Anti-Racism Education Initiative. In this initiative, there are descriptions of specific actions that they would like to see the MCPS Board of Education commit to as well as a section for community members to sign their name as a show of support.
According to the document, the initiative includes 4 main requests: