Table of Contents Pressure Grows to Reopen Schools, But Fears Persist A preschool student gets his temperature checked as he walks into a Chicago elementary school. Nationwide, cities and states where most schools have remained closed throughout the pandemic are struggling to decide when and how to reopen. Ashlee Rezin Garcia/Sun-Times Sun-Times via The Associated Press Margery Smelkinson, a mother with four kids in an elementary school in Montgomery County, Maryland, suspects that the parent group she joined had something to do with Republican Gov. Larry Hogan’s recent announcement that all schools must reopen by March 1. “Out of desperation,” she said, representatives of her group and others in the state met with Hogan days before his Jan. 21 announcement and asked him to intervene in deadlocked local negotiations over when and how to open schools.