School district leaders are defending their response to the recent snowstorm as Montgomery County examines its much-maligned efforts to shovel itself out.

Blocked and slippery sidewalks, combined with icy roads, kept students out of class for a week.

School leaders’ latest response follows a Tuesday afternoon briefing in which members of the County Council grilled agency officials and demanded a better performance following future storms.

One councilmember faulted district leaders for, in her view, blaming the county for needing to close school on Monday. Another official said the school system’s first formal request from the county arrived a full week after the storm hit.

Hours after that contentious briefing, the school district’s chief of staff emailed councilmembers with a rebuttal.

Essie McGuire’s email, reviewed by The Banner, emphasized that, while school officials are responsible for clearing snow from campuses, it’s the county’s job to clear streets and sidewalks beyond school grounds.

“Should MCPS have provided a list of uncleared streets earlier? That’s not our job!” she wrote.

During Tuesday’s council briefing, the county’s chief administrative officer said the first formal communication from the school system after the storm — a list of problem roads within the county — arrived Feb. 1, a week after snow and ice walloped the region.

“Bam, we were on it,” Rich Madaleno told the council.

“We’ve got to have a better communication with MCPS,” he added. “We should be dealing with them from the very first moment.”

McGuire’s email pushed back, saying school officials communicated with county staff much earlier, starting with a Montgomery County Emergency Management Zoom call Jan. 23.

“MCPS had ongoing engagement with MCDOT,” she wrote.

She told The Banner on Wednesday that, after the council briefing, school officials felt they needed to set the record straight.

“Our concern was that the council briefing left an impression that MCPS had not fulfilled its responsibilities, and we refute that,” McGuire said.

The storm after the storm

The email is the latest sign of tensions touched off by the winter storm. Montgomery County families were infuriated when they couldn’t make it to doctors’ appointments, jobs or school as streets sat unplowed and ice piled up on curbs.

Councilmembers aired many of those frustrations at Tuesday’s briefing.

“It feels like no one’s taking responsibility and accountability for what happened and why students weren’t in school for eight days,” Councilmember Andrew Friedson said.

Councilmember Kate Stewart said she felt the school district wrongly blamed the county when it explained its school closure decisions to families. MCPS told parents schools couldn’t reopen sooner because poor road and sidewalk conditions posed dangers to bus riders and the roughly 20% of children who walk to campus.

“We got blasted by constituents,” Stewart said.

The school district closed its more than 200 campuses after the storm dumped 6-12 inches of snow on the county that soon froze as temperatures dropped.

Students didn’t return to class until Tuesday of this week and, even then, after a two-hour delay.

In his weekly media briefing Wednesday, County Executive Marc Elrich praised the county’s response to the storm and described councilmembers’ public outrage as election-year antics.

“We mobilized every resource we had and could get our hands on,” Elrich said. “Our folks did a good job. I think you saw a lot of political acting.”

The county’s transportation director, Chris Conklin, also said Wednesday the department cooperated well with MCPS.

Conklin added that residents who failed to clear sidewalks outside their homes also made it difficult for students to use school bus stops, and that his department is working with the county Department of Housing and Community Affairs to issue citations to these homeowners.