Maryland’s GOP Gov. Larry Hogan on Thursday urged all schools in the state to plan some in-person instruction this fall.
All of Maryland's 24 jurisdictions are starting the school year with online instruction, but 16 plan some in-person school instruction for K-12 this fall. Hogan said it "doesn't make any sense" for eight jurisdictions to not have plans to return students to the classroom.
"Nearly everyone agrees that there is no substitute for in-person instruction. It is essential that we all work together on flexible hybrid plans to safely get some of our kids back into classrooms and into healthy and supportive learning environments," Hogan said.
"We're going to go back and ask them to reconsider, but also the numbers have gotten dramatically better than they were as they were going through some of these decisions a month, or two or three ago," Hogan added.
Hogan, a frequent critic of President Donald Trump’s handling of the coronavirus, said his position on schools reopening differs from the president’s.
“I remember the president saying he was going to order all the schools to immediately open … we don’t have that authority to tell school systems what they must do," he said, The Hill reported.
Hogan said his administration aimed to offer financial incentives for schools to open for in-person instruction.
“I think we’re going to go back and put pressure on them … it’s not acceptable to say you’re just going to shut for the rest of the year.," he said.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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