Superintendent Jerry D. Weast and Board of Education President Patricia B. O’Neill are among those who will participate in ceremonies welcoming nearly 650 new teachers to Montgomery County Public Schools. The ceremony follows a week of orientation activities for teachers new to the school system.

The reception and ceremony will take place on Tuesday, August 19, from 9:00 a.m. until 11 a.m., at Walt Whitman High School.

Teachers have been hired from 30 states and the District of Columbia, but more than two thirds (68 percent) come from Maryland.

More than half of the newly-hired teachers (60 percent) are new to teaching. Forty-five percent have master’s or master’s equivalency degrees.

The new hires are approximately 14 percent African American, 7 percent Asian, and 5 percent Hispanic. Females comprise about 81 percent of the new teachers hired this year.