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.