This story was updated at 5:40 p.m. on Dec. 17, 2021, to include comments from Jermaine Williams and Board of Trustees chair Mike Knapp

Jermaine Williams, the president of Nassau Community College on Long Island, N.Y., has been selected to be the next president of Montgomery College. The college announced Williams’ appointment Friday afternoon.

Williams has led Nassau Community College since 2019 and previously worked at Northeastern Illinois University, the Community College of Philadelphia and Temple University in Philadelphia, according to his LinkedIn profile.

Williams has a doctorate in educational administration from Temple University and holds certificates from Harvard University’s Graduate School of Education, according to a biography from Montgomery College.

Williams’ bio states that he has several years of experience “creating, managing, and enhancing systemic and systematic institutional and state-wide programs and initiatives that have yielded positive student outcomes” and that his career has focused on addressing inequities in education, particularly among minority and marginalized communities.

Williams permanently succeeds former Montgomery College President DeRionne Pollard, who was hired in April to be the president of Nevada State College in Henderson, Nev., near Las Vegas. She left the Montgomery College job in August after 11 years in the position.

Charlene Dukes, formerly the president of Prince George’s Community College, has led Montgomery College as interim president since Pollard’s departure this summer.

In an interview with Bethesda Beat following a welcome ceremony Friday afternoon on campus, Williams said he felt “ecstatic and honored.” He said the college’s commitment to equity attracted him to the job.

“The dedication of Montgomery College to student access, the dedication to radical inclusion, their passion for meeting the students’ unmet needs, their desire to be transformational and innovative and even elevate that … they all resonate with my work and my experience, and what I believe I can help bring to the college,” he said.

Williams said he hoped to continue the college’s “data-informed” approaches when it comes to meeting unmet needs on campus — a task that continues to be a challenge during the economic downturn stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic, he said.

“We know that social inequities have been exacerbated by what we’re going through. And learning from that is really taking a deep dive into how we’re moving forward with an equity mindset,” he said.

Mike Knapp, the chair of the college’s Board of Trustees, told Bethesda Beat on Friday that in addition to being “a really smart guy,” Williams stood out among the candidates because of his commitment to students and equity.

“His entire career, he’s been focused on serving in an advising role, serving as a teacher or serving as a vice president for student success,” Knapp said.

“We recognize that there are gaps in access. There are gaps in affordability. There are gaps in educational attainment. How do we, as Montgomery College, set a bar not just to close that gap, but to then move to that definition of success for all students?”

Knapp said the process for finding a successor to Pollard began over the summer.

“We spent June, July and part of August after Dr. Pollard’s announcement really assessing our stakeholders inside the college and outside the college,” he said. “We took that and put together our position profile based on that feedback, that we then put out for the public to consume to say, ‘OK. This is what we need. Who out there thinks they can do it?’”

Knapp said a search advisory committee made up of both people at Montgomery College and community members then narrowed a list of 80 who applied in October, down to 30 and eventually seven. The board then narrowed the list to three finalists, all of whom were interviewed.

“We had three great finalists. You would think having three great finalists together would make life easier. It made life harder, because we saw what each of them possessed ….,” Knapp said.

In a statement to Bethesda Beat on Friday, the Nassau Community College Board of Trustees wrote that during his time as president there, Williams “has proven his dedication to advance student access, completion and post-completion success.”

“Through a pandemic, Dr. Williams led the College with tenacity, continuing to provide a high-quality education and excellent support services to all students,” the Nassau board wrote.

Officials at Northeastern Illinois University could not be reached for comment Friday afternoon.

Williams is expected to take over as president some time in the first quarter of 2022, although the college did not give a specific date on Friday.

Williams will be paid $320,000 annually on a five-year contract, according to Montgomery College spokesman Marcus Rosano.

Williams, a 42-year-old father of two boys, said Friday that so far he’s been impressed with Montgomery County.

“When we were down a few weeks ago, the boys went ice skating at Rockville [Town] Center, and it was fantastic,” he said. “We think it’s fantastic and we’re extremely excited. This is our home now.”

Dan Schere can be reached at daniel.schere@moco360.media

Montgomery County Public Schools are aware of threats on social media involving a possible bombing of schools or a school shooting, but none of them have been deemed “credible,” a district spokesperson said Friday.

Chris Cram, a school spokesperson, said in an interview that similar threats have been made across other Maryland school systems recently, and that they appear to have originated on TikTok, a popular social media app.

Even though there is a pattern among the threats, “They are deemed non-credible because there’s no specific threat against any specific school,” Cram said.

The district put out a statement that the “MCPS and [Montgomery County Police Department] will continue to monitor social media and will actively investigate any specific threat in our community. The community is encouraged not to share these messages online but to report any such threats to local law enforcement.”

Steve Bohnel can be reached at steve.bohnel@moco360.media

This story was updated at 8:15 p.m. on Dec. 17, 2021, to include the latest information on the MCPS guidance for winter sports, and news of Prince George’s County Public Schools’ decision to transition to virtual learning

As coronavirus cases rise in Montgomery County and throughout the nation, with the looming threat of the omicron variant on the horizon, school system leaders are urging students to take precautions during the upcoming winter break. But school and county officials say the aim is for in-person learning to continue.

In recent days, athletic teams at four Montgomery County high schools have experienced COVID-19 outbreaks. The outbreaks led the school system to implement new guidance, stating that a team must suspend activities for 14 days if there are five or more active cases. That guidance was amended on Friday to state that a team must suspend activities for 14 days if there are three or more active cases. Additionally, MCPS announced the suspension of nonathletic extracurricular activities through Jan. 7 and games for winter sports that were scheduled during winter break, between Dec. 23 and Jan. 2.

 According to county health department spokeswoman Mary Anderson, the affected teams are:

• The wrestling team at James Hubert Blake High School in Colesville
• The varsity and junior varsity boys basketball teams, wrestling team and indoor track teams at Paint Branch High School in Silver Spring
• The varsity and junior varsity girls basketball teams at Col. Zadok Magruder High School in Derwood
• The varsity girls basketball and wrestling teams at Poolesville High School

Additionally, two private high schools in the county ceased virtual instruction this week due to outbreaks.

Despite the outbreaks at Georgetown Preparatory School and Our Lady of Good Counsel High School in recent days, Acting Health Officer Dr. James Bridgers and Assistant Chief Administrative Officer Earl Stoddard say county health officials have not discussed shutting down in-person learning at MCPS.

“Our goal throughout this has been, so long as we believe we can make the in-school environment as safe as possible–that includes through limiting cases, but also probably more importantly through distribution of vaccinations to prevent even those students who may or may develop COVID from having severe illness–as long as we believe that we can prevent serious outcomes for students, we know there is a serious outcome with students not being in the classroom,” Stoddard told reporters this week.

According to MCPS’s COVID-19 dashboard, there were 452 active cases of COVID-19 combined between faculty and students as of Wednesday, and 1,176 people who were actively quarantining (the dashboard is updated each week on Wednesdays). The school system has an enrollment of more than 159,000 students, as of Sept. 30.

Montgomery County Board of Education President Brenda Wolff told Bethesda Beat Thursday that officials are monitoring the situation and will “make adjustments as necessary.”

“It’s not our intent at this time to close any schools,” she said.

Wolff said she’s encouraged by the fact that the county has a high vaccination rate, which was at 82.2% for the entire population as of Friday, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Wolff encouraged families to have their children wear a mask and get vaccinated as students go off for winter break next week.

School board member Lynne Harris, who has a background in public health, noted on Thursday that the omicron variant is highly transmissible, but not terribly virulent, or harmful.

“Our cases are rising quickly, [but]I’m not seeing anything that I didn’t really expect to see,” she said.

Harris said it’s important that MCPS rely on science-based guidance as it makes decisions going forward. It might be worth revisiting policies that allow players to not wear masks during games for some high-risk sports, she said.

“We can do this. We can implement common-sense measures to keep people safe, and still participate the activities that our students find value in,” she said.

Each individual school district in Maryland must make decisions based on the on-the-ground reality, Harris said. She noted that Howard County Schools recently canceled all extracurricular activities through Jan. 15, and three schools in Prince George’s County closed due to a rise in cases.

“To me, omicron is yet another COVID game-changer. We can’t pretend that the infectious agents don’t exist… this is the reality that we’re in now and we have to adapt,” she said.

Prince George’s County Public Schools announced on Friday that it would shift to virtual learning starting Monday, and it would remain that way at least through much of January.

Harris also urged students to be careful during the holidays and take common-sense measures such as getting vaccinated, washing hands, wearing a mask and maintaining social distancing.

“We’re moving into the holiday season, and I know everyone’s got COVID fatigue, but I want to ask everyone to be smart and careful about how to spend their time over the holidays,” she said.

Staff writer Steve Bohnel contributed to this story

Dan Schere can be reached at daniel.schere@moco360.media