What’s your elementary school plan?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Of course it's more complicated than do you want to be vaccinated but the PP said "setting aside access issues." It's probably not feasible to get everyone who works at a school vaccinated before kids start coming back, but what about "you must be vaccinated by return to school in Fall 2021"?

FWIW--I have friends who teach at private schools and the administrations are aggressively working to get people vaccinated. Not that I'd expect BOE to do the same for MCPS employees....

What does aggressively trying to get people vaccinated mean? Do they have people frantically clicking on appointment websites to try to get people appointments?

I have trouble believing that private school administrators would have access to some special vaccine supply that would get around the issues relating to the difficult of finding appointments.

NP here. Private school administrators are helping their staff navigate the registration process by keeping them up to date on what's happening when and where and sharing experiences and best practices. They fought hard to get a dedicated avenue for their staff to get vaccinations (vs playing the lottery with Giant, CVS, etc). Now that Johns Hopkins is handling vaccinations for all educators, private schools are making sure their staff is registered with the Johns Hopkins system so that they actually receive the vaccination invitation when their number comes up. As I understand it, if you are not already a Johns Hopkins patient, you have to set up an account. I wonder if anyone is explaining that to the public school teachers and staff?

MCPS employees were told that JHU would notify us by email when it was our turn to either create a MyChart account and set up our appointment, or to log into our existing MyChart account and create our appointment. A few people I know did receive their vaccines through JHU, but most have had to scramble with everyone else in the state of Maryland to try to get at least one vaccine before having to report to school in person.

As for the MoCo Health department, we were also told a while back that some of use would receive emails from them about signing up for our appointment, but then the county changed their policy and decided to distribute only to people 75+. MCPS employees were told it would be at least 5 weeks before any employees would be eligible to be vaccinated by the county...and I think that was more than 5 weeks ago.

So yes, MCPS employees are well aware of the partnerships created to try to get vaccines to them! If JHU had been given more vaccines to distribute, so many of us wouldn't be having to drive hours to receive a vaccine, if we are lucky enough to find an appointment somewhere.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Of course it's more complicated than do you want to be vaccinated but the PP said "setting aside access issues." It's probably not feasible to get everyone who works at a school vaccinated before kids start coming back, but what about "you must be vaccinated by return to school in Fall 2021"?

FWIW--I have friends who teach at private schools and the administrations are aggressively working to get people vaccinated. Not that I'd expect BOE to do the same for MCPS employees....

What does aggressively trying to get people vaccinated mean? Do they have people frantically clicking on appointment websites to try to get people appointments?

I have trouble believing that private school administrators would have access to some special vaccine supply that would get around the issues relating to the difficult of finding appointments.

NP here. Private school administrators are helping their staff navigate the registration process by keeping them up to date on what's happening when and where and sharing experiences and best practices. They fought hard to get a dedicated avenue for their staff to get vaccinations (vs playing the lottery with Giant, CVS, etc). Now that Johns Hopkins is handling vaccinations for all educators, private schools are making sure their staff is registered with the Johns Hopkins system so that they actually receive the vaccination invitation when their number comes up. As I understand it, if you are not already a Johns Hopkins patient, you have to set up an account. I wonder if anyone is explaining that to the public school teachers and staff?

MCPS employees were told that JHU would notify us by email when it was our turn to either create a MyChart account and set up our appointment, or to log into our existing MyChart account and create our appointment. A few people I know did receive their vaccines through JHU, but most have had to scramble with everyone else in the state of Maryland to try to get at least one vaccine before having to report to school in person.

As for the MoCo Health department, we were also told a while back that some of use would receive emails from them about signing up for our appointment, but then the county changed their policy and decided to distribute only to people 75+. MCPS employees were told it would be at least 5 weeks before any employees would be eligible to be vaccinated by the county...and I think that was more than 5 weeks ago.

So yes, MCPS employees are well aware of the partnerships created to try to get vaccines to them! If JHU had been given more vaccines to distribute, so many of us wouldn't be having to drive hours to receive a vaccine, if we are lucky enough to find an appointment somewhere.

My MCPS DH teacher finally got an appointment and is driving to 6 Flags in Bowie tomorrow (and he is a Hopkins patient and has a MyChart.). Another one of his coworkers drove to Ocean City because she finally got an appt there. It's been a total trainwreck.

[Anonymous]

curious - do you know what time the states sign up website resets for the day? What time was he able to get an appointment?

[Anonymous]

Private school teacher here. My administrators don't have special privileges, but they have been awesome. Even my school nurse sent an email to everyone in her network when I was having trouble getting an appointment, and gave me a lot of tips. One did the trick. Every time someone is able to get an appointment, by the way, we then turn our energy to helping out our colleagues. Meaning, if we know appointments will be released at a time when a colleague is teaching, the rest of us will log in for them and keep trying. We cheer whenever we get an appointment! We're in person so you can hear the happy yelling. And it's not just the teachers. All of the administrators are working to help us too. They keep a list of who still needs one and where they live and monitor sites for them, and follow up so we feel like we're all one team. The way MCPS is handling it has made teachers feel like lord of the flies, to each their own. It seems inhumane. All my colleagues have an appointment for one shot at this point, so many of us have started helping our public school teacher friends in the same way. I encourage MCPS teachers to band together and give each other an assist. If your leaders won't help you, keep helping each other. It's very stressful.

[Anonymous]

A high percentage of the students in my child’s class elected to return in person, so we were told they need to split the class into two rooms. They’ll be in the classroom with their teacher half the time. The other half of the time, they will be in a room with a para, learning via computer. 4 days a week, with everyone home on Wednesdays. The school is prioritizing keeping students with their teachers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OK, so what am I missing. Our school is doing concurrent for 1st grade (kids in class with teacher, who is also teaching on Zoom). Are we really to expect 1st graders not to interact with the teacher (and vice versa? It's HARD for little kids to be taught from afar). One presentation indicated that the teacher will be largely at the Prometheon and students will do assignments on Chromebook but they will watch her in person? Like are they not supposed to watch a teacher who's right in front of them?

I can't picture this logistically.

Was this a promethean teaching based on them showing you a video? Because our elementary school (Somerset) showed us a video as an example of what it MAY look like, and it fooled a bunch of parents into thinking that was exactly how it was going to be....but when pressed further...essentially "experiences may vary..."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our elementary school is doing:
K - 4 days in person with teacher
1-2 - 4 days in person with teacher or "overflow" room with a monitor
3-5 A/B week rotation

Ours is the same, except they were explicit that 1-2 and would be 2 days with teacher and 2 days with monitor.

Poster you are replying to. I wish our school was that explicit. It's not clear to me if my 2nd grader will be in an overflow with a mix of other kids from other classes, or if he will just be with the same 12 kids all day regardless of teacher/monitor. If it is the former, I might just keep him home on monitor days so he's not exposed to more people. I do have to say that our ES is trying really hard and I appreciate all they are doing.

It also seems possible that they would be able to have your kid with the teacher more than 2 days per week. Say they just needed to remove a few kids per class per day to get to the required numbers. Theoretically they could take turns having a few kids pulled over to the monitor. You would have mixing with a greater number of kids -- which does create a bit more risk -- but you would also have an actual teacher more than half the time.

Poster you are quoting. Agreed!

I'd probably be willing to take that trade off.

Thats a lot of faith in folks keeping track and counting the time our kids are marched off to an overflow room...and making it even....

[Anonymous]

We just got our school's plan. K, 2, 3, and 4 are simultaneous. 1 and 5 are support to virtual. 3-5 are alternating A/B weeks.

41% in person, 59% remote, but my hunch is that there will be a lot of families who try to switch to in person. The situation now is a lot different than in December or whenever we filled out that survey.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:curious - do you know what time the states sign up website resets for the day? What time was he able to get an appointment?

Check out the FB Group Maryland Vaccine Hunters. Lots of useful information there under Announcements

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Our FOCUS school hasn't announced plans yet, though they will be sharing more this week with parents. What's clear is that they do anticipate needing some $15/hr monitors-- but I imagine few of them and only in higher grades since our class sizes are capped at 18 in the lower grades and the overall in-person choosers are only at 30%. That's an average of 6 kids per class. So I wouldn't think they'd need monitors, but maybe if some teachers can't come in person?

In older grades I think the cap is like 22, so I can see if a random class had 60% opt into in-person, they might need to split the kids up.

Monitors would be useful for every classroom, especially those with a large number who are staying virtual. The monitor can help monitor the waiting room, chat and questions online - while the classroom teacher is monitoring what is happening in person (or vice versa). If one teacher is left to handle 18 students with 10 in person and 8 online (only 12 bodies can be in most classrooms, so 10 students + teacher + monitor) then the in person students will be waiting for the teacher to handle the tech to connect with online students, and online students will be waiting for teacher re admit them if they get dropped. Both groups will need things repeated because they can't hear, MCPS did not pruchas microphones for teachers and the chromebook microphones are barely adequate when the teacher is in one place, can't imagine it will pick up a class discussion very well.

I don't think most teachers are as against opening as many like to make it out, but I do think the teachers, principals and other mcps employees just want to understand these details that those on the BOE and administrators in Central Office are not considering- all their plans of "high level" and frankly not very feasible. When was the last time any of them were in a classroom?

I also know there are many Central Office employees for different departments who work to come up with possible plans and then are told to change gears and do something else. There are a lot of people working hard, they are just not working efficiently and don't have clear direction or leadership. Seems like there is some discontent and disagreement at the highest levels of Administration that are contributing to the issue and preventing those below them from knowing where/how to focus their energy. I think sometimes there are three plans out there and it's anyone's guess as to what will actually be presented to the board, so everyone is watching and wondering.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Every other week in person. Kids in class with their teacher. Teacher is teaching in person kids and DL kids at the same time.

So teaching to the camera.

Same model at our school

According to our ES principal, this is not allowed in K-2 per MCPS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Every other week in person. Kids in class with their teacher. Teacher is teaching in person kids and DL kids at the same time.

So teaching to the camera.

Same model at our school

According to our ES principal, this is not allowed in K-2 per MCPS.

Are the in-person kids on a computer? This is what our K-2 is doing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Every other week in person. Kids in class with their teacher. Teacher is teaching in person kids and DL kids at the same time.

So teaching to the camera.

Same model at our school

According to our ES principal, this is not allowed in K-2 per MCPS.

Are the in-person kids on a computer? This is what our K-2 is doing.

I believe the part that is not allowed in k-2 is the every other week part. As I understood it, k-2 has to be 4 days a week in person every week. I could be misunderstanding though.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:curious - do you know what time the states sign up website resets for the day? What time was he able to get an appointment?

Check out the FB Group Maryland Vaccine Hunters. Lots of useful information there under Announcements

awesome tip thanks!

[Anonymous]

Truth is that “in-person” learning is not in-person when kids need to be glued to their desks, while on chrome book and wearing headsets.

Is, as always, mcps giving the appearance they’re trying to go open schools