Around Maryland

Maryland’s two largest school systems both have about 3 percent fewer students this fall than they did before the coronavirus pandemic, according to enrollment data made public this week. Montgomery County Public Schools counted 160,770 students on Sept. 30. That was almost unchanged from last year’s total and about 4,500 fewer than the enrollment in fall 2019.

With the funeral of fallen Baltimore City Fire Lt. Dillon J. Rinaldo set for Friday, motorists in Baltimore City and County can expect traffic delays and road closures. The Baltimore City Fire Department said Wednesday that Rinaldo’s funeral will begin at 10 a.m. Friday at the Cathedral of Mary Our Queen at 5200 N. Charles St., followed by interment at Dulaney Valley Memorial Gardens in Timonium.

A new digital flight path is expected to improve emergency response times in north Ocean City. The Ocean City Council on Tuesday approved spending about $43,000 to establish a helicopter instrument approach procedure (IAP) and departure procedure (DP) for Northside Park. Once the procedures are in place, helicopters will be able to land in Northside Park even during weather conditions that require an instrument-only approach.

Open enrollment on Maryland’s health insurance marketplace kicked off Wednesday with a new carrier, expanded savings for young adults and changes to value plans. Marylanders have until Jan. 15 to purchase private plans on the marketplace, the Maryland Health Benefit Exchange said in a news release. Those who qualify for Medicaid may enroll at any time of year.

More than two years after the discovery of severe pollution coming from its two wastewater treatment plants, Baltimore has agreed to pay a state fine of up to $4.75 million and meet a series of deadlines to make repairs, officials will say Thursday. Nearly half of the civil penalty, which is among the largest for water pollution in state history, will fund environmental projects, with a focus on the Patapsco and Back rivers, which received millions of gallons of polluted water from the plants.

The Baltimore Fire Department is making adjustments to how it fights fires. The new procedures were sent out in a memo to staff on Tuesday, WJZ-TV reported. It says effective immediately firefighters must fight fires from outside the building unless they’re told to do otherwise by a battalion chief. Firefighters will now only attack fires from the inside of occupied dwellings after they have completed several checks of the building.

Over the last few months, a handful of city residents tasked with reviewing the Baltimore Police Department’s internal misconduct investigations have been scouring nearly two dozen cases per week, flagging issues with missing video footage, incomplete reports and policy discrepancies. Since its first meeting in mid-June, the five-member “administrative charging committee” of the city’s Police Accountability Board has reviewed more than 370 cases, according to the city’s Office of Equity and Civil Rights, which oversees its work. Of those cases, the committee has differed from the department’s internal conclusions in seven instances, the civil rights office said.

Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown co-led a coalition of 19 attorneys general who submitted an amicus brief supporting the Montgomery County Board of Education in its decision to include LGBTQ+ books in its language arts curriculum A group of parents sued the Montgomery County school board after it allowed elementary schools to read books about LGBTQ+ people.

Karla Silvestre, the president of the Board of Education, joined the Bethesda-Chevy Chase Democratic Breakfast club on Oct. 23 to discuss issues that the school system is facing and answered community member’s questions and comments. Silvestre touched on the investigation of allegations of sexual misconduct by a Montgomery County Public Schools principal, how to support students and schools during the Israel-Hamas war, the school district’s climate initiatives, the electric school bus program and some budget details.