Today, Maryland Governor Larry Hogan reversed a recent Montgomery County ruling that said all county private schools had to be online-only. The original decision was made on Friday by Montgomery County Health Officer Travis Gayles, which Hogan cited as an overstep of authority.
Hogan’s executive order states only school systems and private schools have the authority to delineate school reopening procedures, and that health officials can only intercede to shut down individual schools for health reasons. “This is a decision for schools and parents, not politicians,” Hogan tweeted Saturday.
All Montgomery County public schools will resume online-only in the fall, in addition to a number of private schools. We’ll see if that’s the case for St. Andrew’s Episcopal School in Potomac, which is responsible for educating First Son Barron Trump.
Likely to the delight of Barron’s father – who’s been emphatic about opening all American schools – St. Andrew’s has previously stated they intend to resume in-person and on time in September, though a final decision won’t be made until the week of August 10.
Hogan, who has been a leading GOP critic of Trump, in this case faulted the heavily Democratic county’s local government for making decisions that he said ought to be up to school communities. Whether this endears him to the First Son is unclear.
Jane is a Chicago transplant who now calls Cleveland Park her home. Before joining Washingtonian, she wrote for Smithsonian Magazine and the Chicago Sun-Times. She is a graduate of Northwestern University, where she studied journalism and opera.
