MONTGOMERY COUNTY, Md. — Some students in Montgomery County plan to leave their schools on Friday to protest the school system’s COVID learning plan.

Currently, Montgomery County Public Schools are only allowing their schools to go virtual, on a case-by-case basis, in response to the omicron push.

The move has been a point of contention in Montgomery County, as many parents have demanded more transparency from the school system regarding how it decides which schools go virtual and which stay in-person.

On Friday, students from 18 MCPS schools will come out with requests to make classes virtual for the next two weeks.

Participating students branded the effort “MCPS Students for Virtual” on social media and handed out signs for their respective schools that read “Walkout for COVID Safety.”

Nora Rudmann, a student who attends Poolesville High School, said each school would go about their walkout differently. She said participating students try to work with their campus administrators.

Either way, Rudmann said she and her friends decided to stage the walkout because they didn’t feel safe in their learning environment as it currently is in County County. Montgomery.

“We don’t really know what’s going on,” she said. “We don’t really get clear communication from the county. So we don’t know if the cases are increasing sharply or decreasing sharply at this time and we are not clearly informed. It’s a big problem.

WUSA9 has reached out to Montgomery County Public Schools to see if they have a response to the planned protests. He has not yet received a response.

According to student organizers, students from the following schools will participate in the protest:

• Bethesda Chevy Chase HS
• Rockville HS
• Clarksburg HS
• Walter Johnson HS
• Northwood HS
• North West HS
• Gaithersburg HS
• Montgomery Blair HS
• Churchill HS
• Sherwood HS
• Richard Montgomery HS
• Springbrook HS
• John F. Kennedy HS
• Poolesville HS
• James Hubert Blake HS
• Walt Whitman HS
• Loiderman MS
• MS of Tilden