Why doesn't MCPS seem to have a covid plan for the fall?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

As well useful stuff like how they plan to do lunches:

"The school system will continue with bagged lunches for the school year. Students who wear a mask at school
will eat their meals six feet of physical distance apart from other students. Modifications to the lunch schedule
and locations for meal services will be determined by the school principal based on the needs of the school.
The cafeteria and classrooms may be used, as necessary."

I'm not sure why there is so much opposition to having a plan. An imperfect plan is better than no plan to me. This is an organization with 160k students and 20k staff members. Should an organization that large really operate without a plan?

There is a plan. The plan is: 100% capacity, five days a week, with masks, and the Virtual Academy. Does MCPS really need to produce a special document to tell you that school administrators will be involved in decisions about how to conduct lunch?

So there's a plan about lunch, and it's been communicated to all staff and administrators, but not parents?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Given the recent surge and how delta has changed everything, I think all bets are off for this fall but they aren't going to announce anything since the situation is still very fluid.

Exactly.

All the posters making fun of others for not having the "foresight" to apply for the VA are unreasonable. Most of us want to send our kids in-person.

We are asking for an update on the Covid-19 plans:
1. mitigation measures during lunch or other unmasked indoor activities,
2. new details on upgraded safety precautions given Delta,
3. and plan B if we're forced into a more prolonged closure.

1. Lunch is school specific.
2. There are very likely none. Any pre-Delta mitigation measures are what they could pull off. If they couldn’t do it then, they can’t do it now. Concurrent/hybrid isn’t happening.
3. Clearly temporary DL, but I’m sure they’ll try to avoid for as long as they can.

The answers are rather obvious.

I disagree. Lunch solutions SHOULD NOT be school-specific. There should be a system-wide plan for outdoor lunches and Central Office can use federal funds to invest in tents, tables and chairs.
There should be information how how exactly they've upgraded their air filtration systems. There should be confirmation of how they're going to deal with discipline issues regarding masks, sanitizing procedures, testing and contact tracing, etc. And regarding temporary distance learning, if that's option B, then they must organize something rapidly and tell us now because it's likely to happen after 2 weeks of school, when cases explode.

There is nothing obvious about it.

Posters who wave away all concerns are just being willfully contrarian. If your workplace was so full of people in close quarters all the time, with hundreds of unvaccinated people unmasked in the cafeteria during your lunch hour, and you hadn't heard a peep from management, you'd be livid!

DP. I actually couldn’t care less about any of those points. What am I going to do with this info? My kids are going back.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

As well useful stuff like how they plan to do lunches:

"The school system will continue with bagged lunches for the school year. Students who wear a mask at school
will eat their meals six feet of physical distance apart from other students. Modifications to the lunch schedule
and locations for meal services will be determined by the school principal based on the needs of the school.
The cafeteria and classrooms may be used, as necessary."

I'm not sure why there is so much opposition to having a plan. An imperfect plan is better than no plan to me. This is an organization with 160k students and 20k staff members. Should an organization that large really operate without a plan?

There is a plan. The plan is: 100% capacity, five days a week, with masks, and the Virtual Academy. Does MCPS really need to produce a special document to tell you that school administrators will be involved in decisions about how to conduct lunch?

So there's a plan about lunch, and it's been communicated to all staff and administrators, but not parents?

No. I think you're mixing up two things.

1. Allegany County's wordy plan, which includes the information that school administrators will be involved in decisions about how to conduct lunch.
2. The reality in MCPS, which is that school administrators are involved in decisions about how to conduct lunch.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

As well useful stuff like how they plan to do lunches:

"The school system will continue with bagged lunches for the school year. Students who wear a mask at school
will eat their meals six feet of physical distance apart from other students. Modifications to the lunch schedule
and locations for meal services will be determined by the school principal based on the needs of the school.
The cafeteria and classrooms may be used, as necessary."

I'm not sure why there is so much opposition to having a plan. An imperfect plan is better than no plan to me. This is an organization with 160k students and 20k staff members. Should an organization that large really operate without a plan?

There is a plan. The plan is: 100% capacity, five days a week, with masks, and the Virtual Academy. Does MCPS really need to produce a special document to tell you that school administrators will be involved in decisions about how to conduct lunch?

So there's a plan about lunch, and it's been communicated to all staff and administrators, but not parents?

No. I think you're mixing up two things.

1. Allegany County's wordy plan, which includes the information that school administrators will be involved in decisions about how to conduct lunch.
2. The reality in MCPS, which is that school administrators are involved in decisions about how to conduct lunch.

That makes sense that administrators will make decisions on lunch since each school is different, but where is their guidance? For example, is distancing 3 feet or 6 feet? I don't know the answer, it just seems to me whatever you're trying to roll out to hundreds of schools, and there should be some kind of plan or guidance. Maybe they have written it up, but not made it available to the public?

[Anonymous]

Many schools remained open last year through out the country. Right now red states with a high case rates are not even questioning the opening of schools for in-person. What is wrong with the DC area patents? Our area has high vaccination rate plus people are in general cautious. Why can’t we just let our kids go to school ? Why do we have to make this so difficult for mcps that they think about backtracking in person school?
Kids have been in camps all summer. In groups of 25. Yes the counselors were vaccinated and the kids remained safe. We have to try to give our kids a normal school year .. as normal as possible. Stop the hysteria and fear mongering.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

That makes sense that administrators will make decisions on lunch since each school is different, but where is their guidance? For example, is distancing 3 feet or 6 feet? I don't know the answer, it just seems to me whatever you're trying to roll out to hundreds of schools, and there should be some kind of plan or guidance. Maybe they have written it up, but not made it available to the public?

If you found out that the guidance was 6 feet, what would you do differently?
If you found out that the guidance was 3 feet, what would you do differently?
If you found out that the guidance was not to bother with distancing, what would you do differently?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: What is wrong with the DC area patents? Our area has high vaccination rate plus people are in general cautious. Why can’t we just let our kids go to school ? Why do we have to make this so difficult for mcps that they think about backtracking in person school?

They're crazy and control freaks.Thankfully it doesn't appear that anybody is really listening to them this time.

[Anonymous]

Well, we should be concerned:

Fears as more children falling ill in latest US Covid surge and school approaches

https://www.yahoo.com/news/fears-more-children-falling-ill-175443937.html

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Well, we should be concerned:

Fears as more children falling ill in latest US Covid surge and school approaches

https://www.yahoo.com/news/fears-more-children-falling-ill-175443937.html

Well, masks would probably have been helpful inside the southern schools. As well as parents being vaccinated around them. It is what it is. Kids are going to get sick, and the beat goes on.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Well, we should be concerned:

Fears as more children falling ill in latest US Covid surge and school approaches

https://www.yahoo.com/news/fears-more-children-falling-ill-175443937.html

"Warning that virtual learning that kids have experienced for more than a year is “really bad for their development”, Collins urged that “we ought to be making every effort to make sure they can be back in the classroom. And the best way to do that is to be sure that masks are worn by the students, by the staff, by everybody.”"

Good thing MCPS has a mask requirement!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Well, we should be concerned:

Fears as more children falling ill in latest US Covid surge and school approaches

https://www.yahoo.com/news/fears-more-children-falling-ill-175443937.html

"Warning that virtual learning that kids have experienced for more than a year is “really bad for their development”, Collins urged that “we ought to be making every effort to make sure they can be back in the classroom. And the best way to do that is to be sure that masks are worn by the students, by the staff, by everybody.”"

Good thing MCPS has a mask requirement!

Masks are better than nothing but no one is addressing the fact that we have very large numbers of students together in one building not distanced which in any other situation is not recommended.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Many schools remained open last year through out the country. Right now red states with a high case rates are not even questioning the opening of schools for in-person. What is wrong with the DC area patents? Our area has high vaccination rate plus people are in general cautious. Why can’t we just let our kids go to school ? Why do we have to make this so difficult for mcps that they think about backtracking in person school?
Kids have been in camps all summer. In groups of 25. Yes the counselors were vaccinated and the kids remained safe. We have to try to give our kids a normal school year .. as normal as possible. Stop the hysteria and fear mongering.

This! The DMV has the most anxious uptight residents of anywhere in the country. This pandemic has really made me reconsider staying here long term- no I’m not thinking about moving to FL but plenty of other areas in the northeast prioritized getting kids in schools last year and are not even having a debate about whether to do so this year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

That makes sense that administrators will make decisions on lunch since each school is different, but where is their guidance? For example, is distancing 3 feet or 6 feet? I don't know the answer, it just seems to me whatever you're trying to roll out to hundreds of schools, and there should be some kind of plan or guidance. Maybe they have written it up, but not made it available to the public?

If you found out that the guidance was 6 feet, what would you do differently?
If you found out that the guidance was 3 feet, what would you do differently?
If you found out that the guidance was not to bother with distancing, what would you do differently?

I wouldn't do antyhing differently. But I think it's always good to have plans and guidance. I guess other school districts in MD agree with me, as they have published plans. What's so bad with having a published plan?

MoCo government has a plan in place for how to handle certain natural disasters. Whatever their plan says isn't going to cause me to move out of the county, but I'm glad they have such a plan in place.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Many schools remained open last year through out the country. Right now red states with a high case rates are not even questioning the opening of schools for in-person. What is wrong with the DC area patents? Our area has high vaccination rate plus people are in general cautious. Why can’t we just let our kids go to school ? Why do we have to make this so difficult for mcps that they think about backtracking in person school?
Kids have been in camps all summer. In groups of 25. Yes the counselors were vaccinated and the kids remained safe. We have to try to give our kids a normal school year .. as normal as possible. Stop the hysteria and fear mongering.

Actually many schools were not open and most were hybrid or parents had a choice and many choose virtual making it safer for those in person to return.

Comparing summer camps to an MCPS school makes no sense. In MS, kids have 7-8 rotating classes, lunch, home room plus activities. There is no separating them into groups. How is that safe when some will not be old enough to vaccinate

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Well, we should be concerned:

Fears as more children falling ill in latest US Covid surge and school approaches

https://www.yahoo.com/news/fears-more-children-falling-ill-175443937.html

"Warning that virtual learning that kids have experienced for more than a year is “really bad for their development”, Collins urged that “we ought to be making every effort to make sure they can be back in the classroom. And the best way to do that is to be sure that masks are worn by the students, by the staff, by everybody.”"

Good thing MCPS has a mask requirement!

Masks are better than nothing but no one is addressing the fact that we have very large numbers of students together in one building not distanced which in any other situation is not recommended.

In other words, we will have kids in school buildings. This is not unique to MCPS.

I agree that masks plus a vaccine requirement would be better than just masks and a high vaccination rate, but that's not up to MCPS. And it's still a whole lot better than the places where the outbreaks are occurring, where they have no vaccine requirement, no masks, and a low vaccination rate.