Teachers Rally Against MCPS’ Return-to-School Plans
Hundreds of Montgomery County Public School (MCPS) employees drove around the headquarters of the district’s headquarters in Rockville on Tuesday, honking horns and demanding they not return to the classroom until it is safe.
Their demonstration held up traffic, according to Montgomery County Police. The route included Hungerford Drive, MD 355 and Mannakee Street. According to MCEA, 900 cars joined the rally and 1,500 people participated.
MCPS Board of Education voted to bring students back into the classroom beginning March 1 and continuing through most of April.
Members of the Montgomery County Education Association (MCEA) and SEIU Local 500 rallied “in direct opposition to the recently approved MCPS reopening plan,” they wrote in a press release. The teachers and other school employees are requesting that more space, people and other resources, including improved ventilation, be addressed before returning.
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February 19, 2021
Henry B. Hank Heller, a Democrat who represented Montgomery County in the House of Delegates for two dozen years, died Wednesday at the age of 79. No cause of death was listed.
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Heller, a longtime educator and union activist who served as president of the Montgomery County Education Association, was elected to represent District 19, which takes in portions of Silver Spring and unincorporated Rockville, in 1986.
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District 19 Democrats were split for years between factions aligned with then-Sen. Idamae Garrott or former Del. Lucille Maurer, who was appointed state treasurer in 1987 after losing a Democratic primary challenge to Garrott in 1986. Heller, who was one of three new delegates elected in District 19 that year, was allied with Garrott. Leonard H. Teitelbaum, another new delegate that year who went on to serve in the Senate, was also a Garrott ally, while Carol S. Petzold, the other new District 19 delegate, was i
Hazard pay is ‘sticking point’ in MCPS support staff union negotiations
SEIU president says district being ‘disrespectful’
February 20, 2021 | 8:33 pm
The president of the union that represents Montgomery County Public Schools’ service workers said the district has been “disrespectful” at times in negotiating facets of its reopening plan.
SEIU Local 500 joins the district’s other employee unions one representing teachers and the other representing administrators in publicly expressing frustrations and concerns about MCPS’ reopening plan, set to start in a little more than a week.
In an interview with Bethesda Beat this week, SEIU President Pia Morrison said the union’s impact bargaining negotiations which detail working conditions for employees when buildings reopen are continuing.