Friday's "snow?"

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The median HHI in Montgomery County is $130k or $65k per earner in a two earner household. $65k is the entry level salary for a MCPS teacher. A household with two MCPS teachers earns more than the majority of households in Montgomery County. Most MCPS teachers can definitely afford to live in Montgomery County but choose not to, school should not be canceled because they wanted a bigger house.

What about when you’re single or a single parent and your HHI is 65k which is half of the median HHI for Montgomery County? Have you done the math for what 65k spread out over 12 months nets you as a teacher? Minus taxes, insurance, pension, union fees. Have you researched what a 1br apartment in Moco rents for? And have you been to the grocery store lately?

MoCo has plenty of apartment buildings set aside for affordable housing, some map to good school clusters. Plenty of students in MCPS live in those buildings--that your hypothetical single parent MCPS teacher chooses not to, and prefers to live further away from their job, is their choice.

+1 families with a female householder and no spouse with a child under 18 comprise less than 8% of families in Montgomery County and their median income is about $56k. Most of these are obviously not teachers.

The majority of students in MCPS have qualified for FARMS at some point. The income max.for FARMS for a family of 4 is about $60k. Meaning teachers earn a lot more than the families of MCPS students.

+2 There are a lot of poor students, far poorer than a teacher’s kid, in MCPS. To say that the teacher has no affordable options to live in MCPS is ridiculous. That the teacher doesn’t like the options available to them or prefers to live with family further away from MoCo doesn’t justify MCPS to bend over backwards to accommodate staff’s housing preferences.

Here’s the thing, when I’ve run the COL to areas outside of the DMV, the discrepancy between teacher income and cost of living is far greater. In other words, to move from say, Columbus, Ohio to Montgomery County, I have to make 1.34x my current salary. So how does the county attract teachers when they can barely afford housing in the zip codes where they work? We’ve already experienced challenges getting positions filled, it’s only going to get worse unless you entice future generations with competitive pay and benefits. I’ve already lost some high quality colleagues to Frederick County, because they’ve moved there as it’s more affordable and the pay of comparable. Work/Life balance is one major benefit for many and commuting two hours a day destroys that.

My brother and his wife are both teachers in Indiana. Their combined salaries are a bit less than I make by myself. Nevertheless, they own a house 10 minutes from where they each work and are paying for full-time childcare for a preschooler and an infant and are making it just fine. The COL differences are insane.

Not a lot of snow days in Indiana.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The median HHI in Montgomery County is $130k or $65k per earner in a two earner household. $65k is the entry level salary for a MCPS teacher. A household with two MCPS teachers earns more than the majority of households in Montgomery County. Most MCPS teachers can definitely afford to live in Montgomery County but choose not to, school should not be canceled because they wanted a bigger house.

What about when you’re single or a single parent and your HHI is 65k which is half of the median HHI for Montgomery County? Have you done the math for what 65k spread out over 12 months nets you as a teacher? Minus taxes, insurance, pension, union fees. Have you researched what a 1br apartment in Moco rents for? And have you been to the grocery store lately?

MoCo has plenty of apartment buildings set aside for affordable housing, some map to good school clusters. Plenty of students in MCPS live in those buildings--that your hypothetical single parent MCPS teacher chooses not to, and prefers to live further away from their job, is their choice.

+1 families with a female householder and no spouse with a child under 18 comprise less than 8% of families in Montgomery County and their median income is about $56k. Most of these are obviously not teachers.

The majority of students in MCPS have qualified for FARMS at some point. The income max.for FARMS for a family of 4 is about $60k. Meaning teachers earn a lot more than the families of MCPS students.

+2 There are a lot of poor students, far poorer than a teacher’s kid, in MCPS. To say that the teacher has no affordable options to live in MCPS is ridiculous. That the teacher doesn’t like the options available to them or prefers to live with family further away from MoCo doesn’t justify MCPS to bend over backwards to accommodate staff’s housing preferences.

Here’s the thing, when I’ve run the COL to areas outside of the DMV, the discrepancy between teacher income and cost of living is far greater. In other words, to move from say, Columbus, Ohio to Montgomery County, I have to make 1.34x my current salary. So how does the county attract teachers when they can barely afford housing in the zip codes where they work? We’ve already experienced challenges getting positions filled, it’s only going to get worse unless you entice future generations with competitive pay and benefits. I’ve already lost some high quality colleagues to Frederick County, because they’ve moved there as it’s more affordable and the pay of comparable. Work/Life balance is one major benefit for many and commuting two hours a day destroys that.

My brother and his wife are both teachers in Indiana. Their combined salaries are a bit less than I make by myself. Nevertheless, they own a house 10 minutes from where they each work and are paying for full-time childcare for a preschooler and an infant and are making it just fine. The COL differences are insane.

Funny how you don't hear a lot of people saying "I wish I lived in Indiana"

I wish l lived in Indiana! Sincerely.

So there’s one.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Admin, can we close this thread? How’s there almost 1.1k of comments here? Locked this thread. Friday is done. Call is done. Snow is melted.

There was frost this morning

[Anonymous]

Lock this thread

[Anonymous]

The fact that this thread has generated 73 pages of arguments and commentary and continues to be at the top of this forum from a one-inch snow event, while other threads about the piss poor literacy and math proficiency rates die out after 3-5 pages, says everything there is to say about people's priorities in this county.

We have the school system we deserve. We are focused on all of the wrong things.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Admin, can we close this thread? How’s there almost 1.1k of comments here? Locked this thread. Friday is done. Call is done. Snow is melted.

There was frost this morning

There might be some flurries on Wednesday. Sure, it's going to be mid to upper 30s, but maybe it will still turn into ice. Should there be a full closure or just an early release?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The fact that this thread has generated 73 pages of arguments and commentary and continues to be at the top of this forum from a one-inch snow event, while other threads about the piss poor literacy and math proficiency rates die out after 3-5 pages, says everything there is to say about people's priorities in this county.

We have the school system we deserve. We are focused on all of the wrong things.

That’s a very cynical view. It’s easy to post about what you have firsthand experience with. Most of us have dealt with delays/closures/driving in snow/sliding on icy patches. Most of us don’t know how to improve literacy and math proficiency rates for all of MCPS, and can only work with our own children.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The fact that this thread has generated 73 pages of arguments and commentary and continues to be at the top of this forum from a one-inch snow event, while other threads about the piss poor literacy and math proficiency rates die out after 3-5 pages, says everything there is to say about people's priorities in this county.

We have the school system we deserve. We are focused on all of the wrong things.

That’s a very cynical view. It’s easy to post about what you have firsthand experience with. Most of us have dealt with delays/closures/driving in snow/sliding on icy patches. Most of us don’t know how to improve literacy and math proficiency rates for all of MCPS, and can only work with our own children.

+1. My kid is proficient, so I don't really have much to contribute to a conversation about kids who aren't. I do have thoughts on when she has a snow day.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The fact that this thread has generated 73 pages of arguments and commentary and continues to be at the top of this forum from a one-inch snow event, while other threads about the piss poor literacy and math proficiency rates die out after 3-5 pages, says everything there is to say about people's priorities in this county.

We have the school system we deserve. We are focused on all of the wrong things.

That’s a very cynical view. It’s easy to post about what you have firsthand experience with. Most of us have dealt with delays/closures/driving in snow/sliding on icy patches. Most of us don’t know how to improve literacy and math proficiency rates for all of MCPS, and can only work with our own children.

No one would expect parents on DCUM to come up with the solution. But I would expect more outrage and demands for accountability from MCPS and the BOE.

But I guess you pretty much said why that's the case: If it doesn't affect your children, you can't be bothered.

That self-centered perspective and attitude is precisely why MCPS gets away with failing its students. Because they figured out that as long as they cater to the kids who are proficient and have resources, they can get with not meeting the educational needs of the majority who don't.

As I said: We have the school system we deserve. Until we start looking for more than just our own kids, MCPS will never improve.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The fact that this thread has generated 73 pages of arguments and commentary and continues to be at the top of this forum from a one-inch snow event, while other threads about the piss poor literacy and math proficiency rates die out after 3-5 pages, says everything there is to say about people's priorities in this county.

We have the school system we deserve. We are focused on all of the wrong things.

That’s a very cynical view. It’s easy to post about what you have firsthand experience with. Most of us have dealt with delays/closures/driving in snow/sliding on icy patches. Most of us don’t know how to improve literacy and math proficiency rates for all of MCPS, and can only work with our own children.

+1. My kid is proficient, so I don't really have much to contribute to a conversation about kids who aren't. I do have thoughts on when she has a snow day.

And that's a problem. You should care because those peers who don't meet proficiency tend to act out more and make the learning environment less safe.

It also diminishes the quality of the peer group your children have access to, and I don't know if you know this, but peers have way more influence over adolescents than their parents.

So it's literally in your children's own best interests to care about the kids who are being undereducated by the system that we as taxpayers fund to the tune of $3 billion dollars, but you can't see it and so you skip over those conversations and instead, invest your time and energy ranting about a bad call Taylor and MCPS made over a one-inch snow event that happened days ago.

We're doomed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The fact that this thread has generated 73 pages of arguments and commentary and continues to be at the top of this forum from a one-inch snow event, while other threads about the piss poor literacy and math proficiency rates die out after 3-5 pages, says everything there is to say about people's priorities in this county.

We have the school system we deserve. We are focused on all of the wrong things.

That’s a very cynical view. It’s easy to post about what you have firsthand experience with. Most of us have dealt with delays/closures/driving in snow/sliding on icy patches. Most of us don’t know how to improve literacy and math proficiency rates for all of MCPS, and can only work with our own children.

+1. My kid is proficient, so I don't really have much to contribute to a conversation about kids who aren't. I do have thoughts on when she has a snow day.

And that's a problem. You should care because those peers who don't meet proficiency tend to act out more and make the learning environment less safe.

It also diminishes the quality of the peer group your children have access to, and I don't know if you know this, but peers have way more influence over adolescents than their parents.

So it's literally in your children's own best interests to care about the kids who are being undereducated by the system that we as taxpayers fund to the tune of $3 billion dollars, but you can't see it and so you skip over those conversations and instead, invest your time and energy ranting about a bad call Taylor and MCPS made over a one-inch snow event that happened days ago.

We're doomed.

We need to fix the easy problems before we can tackle the hard ones.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The fact that this thread has generated 73 pages of arguments and commentary and continues to be at the top of this forum from a one-inch snow event, while other threads about the piss poor literacy and math proficiency rates die out after 3-5 pages, says everything there is to say about people's priorities in this county.

We have the school system we deserve. We are focused on all of the wrong things.

The thread asking how to help the lowest performing students: https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/480/1232560.page -- has about 33 pages so more than 4 or 5 pages but still not as much as this one.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The fact that this thread has generated 73 pages of arguments and commentary and continues to be at the top of this forum from a one-inch snow event, while other threads about the piss poor literacy and math proficiency rates die out after 3-5 pages, says everything there is to say about people's priorities in this county.

We have the school system we deserve. We are focused on all of the wrong things.

That’s a very cynical view. It’s easy to post about what you have firsthand experience with. Most of us have dealt with delays/closures/driving in snow/sliding on icy patches. Most of us don’t know how to improve literacy and math proficiency rates for all of MCPS, and can only work with our own children.

+1. My kid is proficient, so I don't really have much to contribute to a conversation about kids who aren't. I do have thoughts on when she has a snow day.

And that's a problem. You should care because those peers who don't meet proficiency tend to act out more and make the learning environment less safe.

It also diminishes the quality of the peer group your children have access to, and I don't know if you know this, but peers have way more influence over adolescents than their parents.

So it's literally in your children's own best interests to care about the kids who are being undereducated by the system that we as taxpayers fund to the tune of $3 billion dollars, but you can't see it and so you skip over those conversations and instead, invest your time and energy ranting about a bad call Taylor and MCPS made over a one-inch snow event that happened days ago.

We're doomed.

What makes you think pp doesn’t care about the kids who are struggling? She said she doesn’t have much to contribute, not that it doesn’t concern her. Do you think a bunch of anonymous posts on dcum will solve the problem? That is almost certainly not the case.

I think a whole lot of the reasons why kids are struggling are things a school system can’t address. We can’t make sure every kid either has no learning differences or has diagnoses and good standard treatment. We can’t make sure every kid has a stable and secure home life, where they are not exposed to violence, addiction, mental illness, or financial irresponsibility. We can’t make all parents devoted, emotionally available, knowledgeable about best parenting practices, invested in their kids’ success, and financially stable. We can’t make sure every kid shows up for preschool or kindergarten with the necessary skills. We can’t guarantee everyone will be healthy. There are things MCPS can address, but there will always be a gap between the kids whose parents have the resources to give them every opportunity to succeed, and kids whose parents can barely keep their heads above water. That doesn’t mean struggling students are a lost cause or that we should give up on them, but laypeople with no experience in this arena don’t have the answers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The median HHI in Montgomery County is $130k or $65k per earner in a two earner household. $65k is the entry level salary for a MCPS teacher. A household with two MCPS teachers earns more than the majority of households in Montgomery County. Most MCPS teachers can definitely afford to live in Montgomery County but choose not to, school should not be canceled because they wanted a bigger house.

What about when you’re single or a single parent and your HHI is 65k which is half of the median HHI for Montgomery County? Have you done the math for what 65k spread out over 12 months nets you as a teacher? Minus taxes, insurance, pension, union fees. Have you researched what a 1br apartment in Moco rents for? And have you been to the grocery store lately?

MoCo has plenty of apartment buildings set aside for affordable housing, some map to good school clusters. Plenty of students in MCPS live in those buildings--that your hypothetical single parent MCPS teacher chooses not to, and prefers to live further away from their job, is their choice.

+1 families with a female householder and no spouse with a child under 18 comprise less than 8% of families in Montgomery County and their median income is about $56k. Most of these are obviously not teachers.

The majority of students in MCPS have qualified for FARMS at some point. The income max.for FARMS for a family of 4 is about $60k. Meaning teachers earn a lot more than the families of MCPS students.

+2 There are a lot of poor students, far poorer than a teacher’s kid, in MCPS. To say that the teacher has no affordable options to live in MCPS is ridiculous. That the teacher doesn’t like the options available to them or prefers to live with family further away from MoCo doesn’t justify MCPS to bend over backwards to accommodate staff’s housing preferences.

Here’s the thing, when I’ve run the COL to areas outside of the DMV, the discrepancy between teacher income and cost of living is far greater. In other words, to move from say, Columbus, Ohio to Montgomery County, I have to make 1.34x my current salary. So how does the county attract teachers when they can barely afford housing in the zip codes where they work? We’ve already experienced challenges getting positions filled, it’s only going to get worse unless you entice future generations with competitive pay and benefits. I’ve already lost some high quality colleagues to Frederick County, because they’ve moved there as it’s more affordable and the pay of comparable. Work/Life balance is one major benefit for many and commuting two hours a day destroys that.

My brother and his wife are both teachers in Indiana. Their combined salaries are a bit less than I make by myself. Nevertheless, they own a house 10 minutes from where they each work and are paying for full-time childcare for a preschooler and an infant and are making it just fine. The COL differences are insane.

Not a lot of snow days in Indiana.

They do, actually, but they pivot to virtual. Which is a separate discussion. I personally don't have a problem with MCPS not doing this, because last-minute virtual instruction is pretty worthless and only good for bean counting.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The median HHI in Montgomery County is $130k or $65k per earner in a two earner household. $65k is the entry level salary for a MCPS teacher. A household with two MCPS teachers earns more than the majority of households in Montgomery County. Most MCPS teachers can definitely afford to live in Montgomery County but choose not to, school should not be canceled because they wanted a bigger house.

What about when you’re single or a single parent and your HHI is 65k which is half of the median HHI for Montgomery County? Have you done the math for what 65k spread out over 12 months nets you as a teacher? Minus taxes, insurance, pension, union fees. Have you researched what a 1br apartment in Moco rents for? And have you been to the grocery store lately?

MoCo has plenty of apartment buildings set aside for affordable housing, some map to good school clusters. Plenty of students in MCPS live in those buildings--that your hypothetical single parent MCPS teacher chooses not to, and prefers to live further away from their job, is their choice.

+1 families with a female householder and no spouse with a child under 18 comprise less than 8% of families in Montgomery County and their median income is about $56k. Most of these are obviously not teachers.

The majority of students in MCPS have qualified for FARMS at some point. The income max.for FARMS for a family of 4 is about $60k. Meaning teachers earn a lot more than the families of MCPS students.

+2 There are a lot of poor students, far poorer than a teacher’s kid, in MCPS. To say that the teacher has no affordable options to live in MCPS is ridiculous. That the teacher doesn’t like the options available to them or prefers to live with family further away from MoCo doesn’t justify MCPS to bend over backwards to accommodate staff’s housing preferences.

Here’s the thing, when I’ve run the COL to areas outside of the DMV, the discrepancy between teacher income and cost of living is far greater. In other words, to move from say, Columbus, Ohio to Montgomery County, I have to make 1.34x my current salary. So how does the county attract teachers when they can barely afford housing in the zip codes where they work? We’ve already experienced challenges getting positions filled, it’s only going to get worse unless you entice future generations with competitive pay and benefits. I’ve already lost some high quality colleagues to Frederick County, because they’ve moved there as it’s more affordable and the pay of comparable. Work/Life balance is one major benefit for many and commuting two hours a day destroys that.

My brother and his wife are both teachers in Indiana. Their combined salaries are a bit less than I make by myself. Nevertheless, they own a house 10 minutes from where they each work and are paying for full-time childcare for a preschooler and an infant and are making it just fine. The COL differences are insane.

Not a lot of snow days in Indiana.

They do, actually, but they pivot to virtual. Which is a separate discussion. I personally don't have a problem with MCPS not doing this, because last-minute virtual instruction is pretty worthless and only good for bean counting.

Don't have to make up days at end of school year in June when there is only one snow day built into school calendar. That's a plus.