Governor Hogan, in conjunction with the Maryland State Department of Education (MSDE), has taken action to ensure that child care is available and free for essential personnel during the pandemic. Initially, Governor Hogan permitted MSDE to waive certain regulations so that child care centers would have capacity to accommodate children of emergency workers. However, last week, Governor Hogan and MSDE went further and ordered all child care centers to close unless the centers provide services to “essential persons.” The Executive Order listed several specific categories of “essential persons,” which are somewhat broad and not limited to emergency workers. Moreover, MSDE has provided companion guidance to assist centers and families.

Executive Order No. 20-03-25-01

On March 25, 2020, Governor Hogan issued an Executive Order permitting MSDE to close all child care centers except those servicing “essential persons.” “Essential persons” include:

1. providers of health, long-term, or acute inpatient care, emergency medical, or pharmacy services; 
2. public health employees; 
3. law enforcement personnel; 
4. correctional services employees; 
5. firefighters and other first responders; 
6. government employees required to work during the state of emergency or catastrophic health emergency; 
7. employees and representatives of insurance carriers, and those authorized by the Maryland Insurance Agency to engage in the business of insurance; 
8. National Guard personnel called to active duty; 
9. staff and providers of child care or education services, including custodial staff and food service providers; 
10. food distributors and suppliers, including food and supply services or distribution personnel; 
11. transportation and delivery services personnel; 
12. gasoline service station operators and automobile repair mechanics; 
13. critical infrastructure employees, including emergency support personnel for gas and electric utility operations, public works, water treatment, and waste management; and 
14. personnel of other institutions ordered to remain open during the declared state of emergency and catastrophic health emergency.

The Order also permits MSDE to designate additional categories of essential persons in the future. In response to the Order, MSDE closed all child care centers for non-essential persons on March 27, 2020, and open centers may now only accept children of essential persons.

MSDE Guidance

Although there is ambiguity in the Executive Order that has yet to be clarified, MSDE published helpful companion guidance, including the following:

• Maryland will pay in full for child care for essential persons.
• Only one parent in the household must be an essential person to qualify for care.
• MSDE provides a list of available centers for essential personnel and provides a free service to help find care.
• MSDE provides an application for essential personnel (among other forms) with additional details related to the program and child care requirements.

This alert was written by Christopher Tully, a lawyer in the Health Care practice group at Miles & Stockbridge.

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