Around Maryland

The Montgomery County Public Schools Board of Education voted unanimously Tuesday to drop the district’s mask mandate effective immediately for the school system of roughly 160,000 students. “This board would like to remind our community that the decision to wear or remove a mask is an individual and very personal one,” Montgomery County Board of Education President Brenda Wolff said ahead of the vote. Wolff called for community members to treat with respect teachers, staffers and students who may choose to continue to wear a mask.

One morning in late November 2019, a historic office building on Duke of Gloucester Street caught fire, consuming all three stories in flames. In the aftermath, Alderwoman Elly Tierney, a Democrat who represents the Historic District, introduced a bill requiring commercial property owners to install sprinkler systems in their buildings. Last week, the bill passed the City Council by an 8-1 vote. Tierney had withdrawn the bill at the start of the pandemic and reintroduced it in January.

Prince George’s County will let its COVID-19 state of emergency expire on Wednesday at 5 p.m., County Executive Angela Alsobrooks said. The county lifted its indoor mask mandate on Feb. 28. Since Feb. 7, the county has reported fewer than 100 new cases per day, Alsobrook’s office said. As of March 7, the positivity rate is 1.7%, and the weekly case rate per 100,000 residents is 28.37.

The director of Carroll County’s budget office told commissioners Tuesday that the financial outlook for the county is “remarkably better” than it was one year ago. The Board of Carroll County Commissioners got a look at plans for the fiscal 2023 operating budget Tuesday, as county staff prepares for the upcoming budget cycle. The county’s fiscal year begins July 1. Current revenue projections will set the stage for the commissioners’ budget discussions and decisions in the coming months.

All students were evacuated from the Carroll County Career and Technology Center in Westminster early Tuesday morning and were sent back to their home schools for the day following a minor fire inside the Culinary Arts program area of the building. There were no injuries and a school system spokesperson said it was too early to assess the damages to the school.

Baltimore boxing champion Gervonta Davis has agreed to fight Rolando Romero in late spring in a matchup that was originally scheduled for the end of last year before a sexual assault allegation against Romero forced Davis to seek a different opponent. Though the date for the fight has not been formally announced, a source with knowledge of negotiations said it will be in late May or June.

Since the HCPSS Board of Education voted to lift the universal indoor masking requirement Feb. 24, face masks are now optional in county public schools. Parents shared varied opinions about the lifting of the mask requirement. Becky McGill-Wilkinson, of Columbia, is the mother of a preschooler and a first grader at Swansfield Elementary School in Columbia. She said she thinks the school system should have waited to lift the mask requirement until children of all ages can be vaccinated.