On the first day of classes in late August 2021, social studies teacher Brenda Diaz was ready to begin a new year with her students at Gaithersburg High School. While other teachers and students were complying with a county school board-approved mask mandate with the aim of preventing the spread of COVID-19, Diaz recalls she chose to violate the mandate by wearing a “very thin scarf” or nothing at all.
Four days later, her seven-year career with Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) was put on hold — before it ended altogether when she resigned the next year.
Now, Diaz is running for the District 2 seat on the board that mandated the masks. While Diaz does not shy away from highlighting her experience working for MCPS, the nature of her departure from the district she hopes to help run has become a footnote in her campaign.
At election forums, Diaz often discusses her time as a social studies teacher and that all three of her children have attended MCPS schools. At the most recent Oct. 17 forum, Diaz noted she helped rewrite the district’s high school U.S. history curriculum to be more diverse while teaching at Gaithersburg High.
But her candidate website doesn’t mention how or why she left MCPS and she did not mention the issue when responding to a questionnaire for the MoCo360 2024 Voters Guide. Her campaign made no mention of bodily autonomy until the Montgomery County Education Association (MCEA), the local teachers union, released a candidate snapshot saying Diaz testified against COVID-19 vaccines. In a March 2024 blog post, she disputes the characterization of her testimony and highlights her educational experience.
The only time that Diaz mentioned masks, vaccines or bodily autonomy on her campaign social media page was in August when someone accused her of being “anti-vax.”
I support bodily autonomy. My body, my choice— right? The essence of the controversy regarding vaccine mandates is directly tied to my freedom as a woman, as an individual human being,to decide what happens with my body.
— Brenda M Diaz, ✨meets with all constituencies✨ (@BrendaMDiaz4BOE) August 6, 2024
Listen— if you care about someone’s right to choose, then…
When asked why she was running for the school board after resigning from MCPS, Diaz told MoCo360 in late September that she “could not walk any further without knowing” she had done her best and the school board race was her “last, biggest” attempt to help county students.
“I want to do exactly what it was that I did when I was in the classroom, which is to raise academic standards, raise behavioral standards, raise expectations,” Diaz told MoCo360. “That’s why I’m running, despite the fact that I walked away the way that I did. … I’m willing to put my neck out knowing how I left.”
Anti-medical mandate advocacy
Diaz, who’s currently teaching at Fusion Global Academy, an online private school, is one of six people running for three open seats on the school board in the Nov. 5 general election. Diaz is vying for the District 2 seat against Natalie Zimmerman, a current MCPS teacher.
In a traditionally nonpartisan race, Diaz’s candidacy has sparked interest from the Republican and Democratic parties. She’s been endorsed by the Montgomery County Republican Party and targeted as a candidate with an “extremist agenda” by the Maryland state Democratic Party. MCEA didn’t endorse her, instead choosing to support Zimmerman. In an email, Zimmerman declined to comment on this topic.
In a statement, MCEA President David Stein said the union couldn’t comment on individual personnel matters, but raised concerns about Diaz’s policy stances that it says include “an opposition to inclusive curriculum and equity initiatives, and her advocacy for non-public school models that starve public schools of already limited resources.”
In 2021, Diaz told Fox 5 News that MCPS put her on paid administrative leave after she “turned in a request for religious exemption when it comes to getting a vaccine and for wearing a mask.”
She also recounted her refusal to wear masks and her departure from Gaithersburg High in an October 2021 episode of the Peaceful Worldschooling podcast with Angel Harders, a former teacher at Paint Branch High School in Burtonsville who was also placed on leave after refusing to wear a mask.
“I’ve only worn just a very thin scarf around my face. It was my little, like, ‘No, you’re not making me wear a mask,’ ” Diaz said in the podcast video.
Diaz told MoCo360 in late September she couldn’t wear masks due to a medical condition, but she “tried her best” to comply with the mask mandate by wearing thin scarves.
She also said she objected to the mask mandate because the policy infringed upon her “medical freedom,” “bodily autonomy” and “religious freedom.”
Prior to her campaign, Diaz also spoke out against medical mandates within the county. Diaz testified against medical mandates, including masks and vaccine mandates, at county school board and County Council meetings in 2021 and 2022.
In testimony to the council in January 2022, Diaz said she was “deeply saddened and troubled” by the council’s consideration of a resolution to create vaccine requirements to enter public indoor establishments. The resolution was shelved after the council questioned if it would increase vaccination rates, and business owners raised concerns over its implementation, according to Washingtonian magazine.
Diaz said in the testimony that a resolution to create vaccine requirements to enter establishments such as bars and recreation centers would “impose the unlawful and immoral segregation” between vaccinated and unvaccinated residents.
“It is, indeed, the modern-day Jim Crow. As such, the harm that this measure will cause to our county if you choose as a body to act beyond your bounds is immeasurable,” Diaz’s testimony said. “You will divide families and communities by pitting the vaccinated and the unvaccinated against each other.”
In testimony to the school board in October 2021, Diaz said the board and MCPS didn’t have the “authority to violate our freedom to worship God through our acts of bodily autonomy” and implored the board to rescind medical mandates. Diaz said those who didn’t “bend the knee” to the school district were being discriminated against.
Diaz told MoCo360 the testimony was about medical mandates as well as vaccines and she wasn’t “anti-vax.”
“I am [for] bodily autonomy. That is my issue,” she said.
Why Diaz left MCPS
In July 2021, the county school board voted to support then-Superintendent Monifa McKnight’s recommendation to require masks for students and staff in the fall of 2021. According to the 2021-2022 MCPS fall reopening guide, the district required that face masks be worn in all school buildings, buses and facilities, regardless of vaccination status. Employees were also required to submit proof of vaccination or to participate in weekly COVID-19 testing.
In 2021, the Maryland State Board of Education also mandated mask wearing in all public schools. The state board passed an emergency regulation to require masks in all public schools on Sept. 14, 2021. The emergency regulation expired Feb. 25, 2022.
According to the MCPS mask policies, anyone who was older than age 2 and entered an MCPS facility was required to wear a face covering. The requirements allowed employees to forgo masks when alone in an enclosed room, while eating or when on an authorized outdoor mask break. Masks also weren’t required when wearing one could create a safety hazard such as while playing certain sports.
Diaz ended her seven-year teaching career at Gaithersburg High after refusing to adhere to mask mandates, according to videos, news stories and an interview with Diaz. She was placed on paid leave in September 2021 for not following the mandates and eventually resigned in the summer of 2022.
When asked about Diaz’s departure, MCPS spokesperson Liliana Lopez said on Oct. 11 that the district is unable to discuss personnel issues.
Diaz told MoCo360 she couldn’t wear masks due to a medical condition she’s had since childhood but declined to share the condition.
The district’s mask policies did include exemptions for students and employees who were “unable to wear a face covering because of an impairment, disability, or medical condition.” Employees were able to request a disability accommodation for mask wearing, according to the district’s policies.
Diaz said she “later” submitted a medical exemption that “wasn’t honored by MCPS.”
“From the medical freedoms perspective, knowing that there was this mask mandate and that I would not be able to comply … it made teaching impossible,” Diaz told MoCo360.
Diaz also said from a philosophical view, she doesn’t believe the government has any right to tell her what to do with her body. She also said there were portions of the Bible that explained “why covering your face like that is not wise to do.”
Diaz said she “tried her best” to comply with the mask mandate by wearing thin scarves — something she was “called out on” by other teachers and which wasn’t accepted by the school administration. MCPS face coverings had to meet several requirements, including being constructed of tightly-woven fabric or material and having two layers, according to MCPS mask policy at the time.
In the October 2021 podcast episode with Harders, the other teacher who was placed on leave, Diaz said she never wore an approved mask in the building. In the video, Diaz said she wore a thin scarf on the first day of school and explained to her students why she wasn’t wearing a mask.
“I went into [the lesson saying] ‘We are going to study patterns, because if you study the patterns, you will see that they are trying to take away your love. They are trying to take away your freedom. They are trying to take away your beauty. They’re trying to take away your power,’” Diaz said she told the students. “‘And this is why I’m in front of you right now, the anomaly in the building.’”
She also said that on the second day of school, she decided to forgo a face covering in the hallways as well as her classroom. Diaz called the decision to not wear a mask a “lipstick rebellion.”
Diaz said she was confronted by several teachers, including one she said followed her to the bathroom, waited to ask her where her mask was and was “very much in [her] face.” In the podcast, she said she avoided the confrontation and “dismissed her outright.” The teacher reported her, and Diaz said she had a conversation with the assistant principal.
Diaz said she took the third day of school off because she was “in so much stress” and didn’t know what she wanted to do. She decided to not wear a mask on the fourth day, telling Harders she knew it would be her last day at the school. Diaz told Harders that after talking with administration, she was “walked out” of the school.
When MoCo360 asked about wearing a mask to protect the health of other staff and students, Diaz said children weren’t at risk of catching COVID-19 and were “more harmed by wearing the mask” due to potential impacts such as speech delays. Diaz said teachers were given priority to get the COVID vaccine when it became available, and that it wouldn’t have mattered if some people weren’t vaccinated or if they were around children who weren’t at risk.
According to Mayo Clinic, while children are generally less likely to become seriously ill from COVID-19, they’re still at as much risk for catching it as adults. There’s also mixed consensus on the impact of masking on social and emotional development — particularly for younger students — but many experts said that the challenges are manageable and workarounds to things like muffled sound exist, according to NPR and National Geographic articles.
Diaz said MCPS asked her to return to work and wear a mask, which Diaz told MoCo360 she couldn’t do. Diaz also asked for conflict resolution with the teachers who confronted her, a request Diaz said the school declined.
After the school didn’t accept her medical exemption for masks, she said she took unpaid medical leave until 2022. Diaz returned as a teacher at a different school for a week after mask mandates were lifted before resigning in June 2022.
Diaz told MoCo360 she resigned because she “could not go back with a clear conscience,” believing that MCPS was “violating people’s bodily autonomy and people’s constitutional rights.”
