In one large Washington, D.C., suburban county, public school teachers, none of whom are in classrooms, are getting vaccinated today, while their private school counterparts, many of whom are teaching in person, have to wait.
The Montgomery County government in Maryland appears to have prioritized vaccinating remote-only public school teachers over private school teachers. This comes after a battle over the summer in which Montgomery County’s health department tried to bar private schools from holding in-person instruction.
Dr. Travis Gayles, the county health officer, spoke Wednesday afternoon in a media briefing and implied that the county was putting public school teachers ahead of private school teachers.
Explaining the county’s partnership with Johns Hopkins and Suburban Hospital, Gayles said, “They also will be working with our school systems, starting with the public schools, to provide opportunities for vaccination for educators and teachers.”
Gayles continued: “That, as the county executive mentioned, will be a critical component to being able to bring kids back into the school setting, by offering additional protection for our educators and staff. We anticipate they will also be working with our nonpublic schools, and so all of those things are in the works.”
MCPS hasn’t had in-person instruction since March 2020. Gov. Larry Hogan last week implored public schools to reopen by March 1, in light of the increasingly clear costs on learning and mental health of all-remote learning. The Maryland State Education Association, the state’s largest teachers union, bristled at this suggestion, writing an open letter resisting the governor’s call to reopen.
County Executive Marc Elrich implied that private school teachers would be at the back of the educators’ line with a Wednesday press release: “County Executive Marc Elrich today announced that Johns Hopkins Medicine (JHM) will begin vaccinating eligible County residents and Montgomery County Public School (MCPS) employees this week.” The release said nothing about vaccinating the nonpublic school teachers or staff, although these educators are already in classrooms.
On Thursday morning, MCPS faculty were already getting vaccinated and tweeting about it.
Vaccine #1 done. #2 scheduled. Thank you @MCPS for making this an easy process.
— Melanie Bachrach (@BachrachMelanie) January 28, 2021
Meanwhile, teachers and administrators at nonpublic schools in the county reported that they had no way to make an appointment to get vaccinated. The county health office, the county executive’s office, MCPS, and Johns Hopkins had not responded to media queries as of publication.
Montgomery County’s plan, it appears, amounts to this: Teachers who are working from home, and whose union has resisted calls to return to the classroom any time soon, get vaccinated; teachers who are in the classroom have to wait in line.
Gayles and Elrich tried over the summer to bar all nonpublic schools from opening, arguing that in-person instruction was unsafe. They lost that fight after Hogan curtailed the county’s emergency powers and later declared that blanket closures of independent schools were not in keeping with state policy.
