11 schools going virtual for 14 days starting tomorrow, 1/5

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’ve heard it is going to be ALL. Not yet announced.

Yup seems like that’s what the plan is.. no way the red schools will be yellow or green after 14 days. If anything the yellow and green will be red soon. Its all virtual for everyone. MCPS ruins another year of learning for our kids. Especially the younger elementary and special needs students.

What kind of looney tune wants to send a kid into a school with that much COVID? Weirdo. COVID is ruining things, not MCPS.

What kind of idiot thinks COVID is more of a threat to kids than mental illness resulting from nearly two YEARS of chronic stress?

Clueless people are ruining our kids. Not COVID.

If your kid has mental illness, get them psychological help, Parent.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’ve heard it is going to be ALL. Not yet announced.

Yup seems like that’s what the plan is.. no way the red schools will be yellow or green after 14 days. If anything the yellow and green will be red soon. Its all virtual for everyone. MCPS ruins another year of learning for our kids. Especially the younger elementary and special needs students.

What kind of looney tune wants to send a kid into a school with that much COVID? Weirdo. COVID is ruining things, not MCPS.

What kind of idiot thinks COVID is more of a threat to kids than mental illness resulting from nearly two YEARS of chronic stress?

Clueless people are ruining our kids. Not COVID.

NP.

I don't know. What kind of big brain genius thinks that 2-4 weeks of virtual will do more long-term damage on a population level than even "only" an extra 10% of kids getting COVID because schools all stayed in-person?

What kind of beautiful mind thinks that we wouldn't soon all be forced to go virtual from staffing shortages alone, no matter what the policy is?

What kind of galactic superintelligent being thinks that everyone getting COVID all at once will be less stressful to the mental health of kids than a few weeks of home instruction?

You can be as cute with the terms as you want, but I can't fathom how people still trust MCPS to return to in-person after two weeks only of virtual. Come on, people. I'm not even going to touch how cavalier you are about kids' mental health.

I can't fathom how they expect families to find childcare solutions in two-week increments. And two-week increments that can apparently start/stop midweek.

Everyone should have seen this coming and lined up other arrangements if you have two parents working outside the home. This is a bad as unprepared people panicking trying to find rapid tests on Christmas Eve rather than a month before.

This is the kind of dismissive post that makes your contribution irrelevant. There are no arrangements to be had. If you don't have family in the area, you have no options.

We don’t have family in the area and we made it happen. So did all of our friends. And back then, there really WERE almost no options because EVERYTHING was closed.

Try harder.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:MCPS failing your kids, again. Your kids are going to be years behind private school kids and kids from other states.

Eh. I don’t think so.

It’s a fact.

No. It’s an opinion.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’ve heard it is going to be ALL. Not yet announced.

Yup seems like that’s what the plan is.. no way the red schools will be yellow or green after 14 days. If anything the yellow and green will be red soon. Its all virtual for everyone. MCPS ruins another year of learning for our kids. Especially the younger elementary and special needs students.

What kind of looney tune wants to send a kid into a school with that much COVID? Weirdo. COVID is ruining things, not MCPS.

What kind of idiot thinks COVID is more of a threat to kids than mental illness resulting from nearly two YEARS of chronic stress?

Clueless people are ruining our kids. Not COVID.

NP.

I don't know. What kind of big brain genius thinks that 2-4 weeks of virtual will do more long-term damage on a population level than even "only" an extra 10% of kids getting COVID because schools all stayed in-person?

What kind of beautiful mind thinks that we wouldn't soon all be forced to go virtual from staffing shortages alone, no matter what the policy is?

What kind of galactic superintelligent being thinks that everyone getting COVID all at once will be less stressful to the mental health of kids than a few weeks of home instruction?

You can be as cute with the terms as you want, but I can't fathom how people still trust MCPS to return to in-person after two weeks only of virtual. Come on, people. I'm not even going to touch how cavalier you are about kids' mental health.

I can't fathom how they expect families to find childcare solutions in two-week increments. And two-week increments that can apparently start/stop midweek.

Everyone should have seen this coming and lined up other arrangements if you have two parents working outside the home. This is a bad as unprepared people panicking trying to find rapid tests on Christmas Eve rather than a month before.

This is the kind of dismissive post that makes your contribution irrelevant. There are no arrangements to be had. If you don't have family in the area, you have no options.

We don’t have family in the area and we made it happen. So did all of our friends. And back then, there really WERE almost no options because EVERYTHING was closed.

Try harder.

What did you and your friends do to account for two week intervals that can start/stop midweek? Go ahead and help the community.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:More info will be sent out later, but here's the list from the current MCPS press conference:

Rock Terrace
Cannon Road
North Chevy Chase elementary
Hallie Wells
Monocacy
Roberto Clemente
Forest Knolls
Waters Landing
Rosemont
Seneca Valley
Sherwood elementary

And tonight, they will be announcing that all MCPS schools will go virtual. You heard it here first. So funny that so many including MCPS leadership has been in denial, fear, inaction for almost a month now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’ve heard it is going to be ALL. Not yet announced.

Yup seems like that’s what the plan is.. no way the red schools will be yellow or green after 14 days. If anything the yellow and green will be red soon. Its all virtual for everyone. MCPS ruins another year of learning for our kids. Especially the younger elementary and special needs students.

What kind of looney tune wants to send a kid into a school with that much COVID? Weirdo. COVID is ruining things, not MCPS.

What kind of idiot thinks COVID is more of a threat to kids than mental illness resulting from nearly two YEARS of chronic stress?

Clueless people are ruining our kids. Not COVID.

NP.

I don't know. What kind of big brain genius thinks that 2-4 weeks of virtual will do more long-term damage on a population level than even "only" an extra 10% of kids getting COVID because schools all stayed in-person?

What kind of beautiful mind thinks that we wouldn't soon all be forced to go virtual from staffing shortages alone, no matter what the policy is?

What kind of galactic superintelligent being thinks that everyone getting COVID all at once will be less stressful to the mental health of kids than a few weeks of home instruction?

You can be as cute with the terms as you want, but I can't fathom how people still trust MCPS to return to in-person after two weeks only of virtual. Come on, people. I'm not even going to touch how cavalier you are about kids' mental health.

I'm the PP who posted those "cute terms" (and would never blame families for lack of childcare, nor am I cavalier about mental health-- though it's true that I care less about it in a temporary situation with serious competing risks).

And I can't fathom how people think that if only MCPS vowed never to utilize virtual instruction, we'd be just fine.

You are setting up a world in which, if MCPS pivots to virtual for any reason, they will "not be trusted" to return for months or years. Thus, if they want to keep your "trust" they should only pivot to virtual, when? Never? At 50% positivity? Or would it be acceptable to do so when there literally are not enough staff available to keep the school running safely-- which is not a metric we are far from meeting?

The thing is, even if you say there were an acceptable time in your eyes, I don't "trust" that you would not move the goalposts if we reached them.

That's largely what's already happened. A couple of weeks ago, most pro-in-person folks seemed to think the 5% metric was reasonable enough. At least acceptable. Not all pro-in-person folks, but seemingly most.

Now all that has changed is that we're meeting or exceeding that same metric, and now it's unreasonable.

Literally no way to win.

Please. There's been plenty of goalpost-moving on both sides, so don't try to claim superiority on that front.

If MCPS wants to earn my trust, personally, when so many staff are out with Omicron that they can't function, they won't offer virtual at all, because it's a farce. They should admit that, due to the pandemic, they cannot provide the services they are literally paid to do, and shut their doors.

And then, once Omicron has subsided in, what six weeks? Eight? They'll reopen for in-person and deal with the learning loss they claim is fake.

As for mental health, again, anyone who thinks it's a less serious risk *specifically to children* than Omicron and its additional prolonged school closures either isn't paying attention or doesn't care.

I didn't claim superiority because I'm not interested in winning any sort of game here.

You're right that I am assuming virtual won't last more than a month. To that end, I'm comparing the mental health impact of that marginal (additional) amount of virtual schooling to the impact of marginal long-term disabilities among other things (that I don't necessarily expect to show up right away-- see 1918 flu and Parkinsons). Going virtual would slow the spread which would, contrary to popular belief, lead to a decreased number of total cases, even if it only slows it a bit. It would also lead to fewer deaths and disabilities caused by overloaded hospitals. It also gives kids and others who haven't been fully vaxxed more time to catch up and reduce the risk of poorer outcomes (even if we imagine no one dies). It also reduces everyone's viral load, which leads to better outcomes.

The difference between, say, 10% and a 15% rate of certain disabilities in the future is actually highly significant.

But we can all play the conjecture game. No one knows with anything remotely like certainty who is right, but I'm not being cavalier about mental health or learning loss. I'm simply judging other consequences to be greater. And yes, I'm making an assumption about the length of virtual-- but so are you. Your conclusions are based on indefinite or many months of virtual, and mine on a few weeks at most. So of course they're likely to have different imagined consequences.

The part of my argument no one seems to be touching is that I don't think there's as a wide a range of choices as people are imagining. Virtual to some significant degree is inevitable. So some of these arguments are for just kicking the can down the road.

Regardless, you showed some of your cards (or whatever) when you said that, given more extreme circumstances, you'd rather schools shut down completely than have them go to virtual. What effect does that have on mental health? And do you realize that by being less proactive at lower rates of viral spread, you actually potentially hasten that outcome? The one where everything shuts down completely?

If everything shuts down completely, people who think virtual is beneficial might actually have reason to push harder to keep schools open. They might see more clearly the trade-offs the rest of us have been making. It also gives children and parents for whom virtual is a nightmare the flexibility to spend their time doing something different and less stressful than trying to enter yet another assignment in Kami or whatever it is this time.

But most importantly, it’s honest. It would hopefully force an actual consideration of the trade-offs of no in-person education, which our community has thus far been unwilling to have. For example, when you refer to “long-term disabilities,” those need to include mental illnesses, not just those directly related to COVID. Oh, and mental illnesses are associated with what we commonly think of as “physical illnesses,” so throw that in there, too.

We’re all speculating, of course, but what I’m fed up with is the refusal to consider honestly the trade-offs we’re making. We have enough data now to do so.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:More info will be sent out later, but here's the list from the current MCPS press conference:

Rock Terrace
Cannon Road
North Chevy Chase elementary
Hallie Wells
Monocacy
Roberto Clemente
Forest Knolls
Waters Landing
Rosemont
Seneca Valley
Sherwood elementary

Not surprised about Clemente. It is one of the largest MS in MCPS, larger than several HSs in the country, overcrowded and many kids who need the services that MCPS offers. Very high FARMS and ESOL rates. It is just unfortunate.

[Anonymous]

We need hybrid as a fall back always.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We need hybrid as a fall back always.

Please, God!, no hybrid. It was the worst.

[Anonymous]

Why are is mcps basing this on cases reported during winter break when those students wouldn’t be at school tomorrow anyway? Shouldn’t this be based on cases upon return this week? My child hasn’t been exposed to those other students so I don’t understand how this is considered community spread within the school if they weren’t even present.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why are is mcps basing this on cases reported during winter break when those students wouldn’t be at school tomorrow anyway? Shouldn’t this be based on cases upon return this week? My child hasn’t been exposed to those other students so I don’t understand how this is considered community spread within the school if they weren’t even present.

Why wouldn't students be at school tomorrow? Says who? Two snows days in a row are over.

[Anonymous]

For everyone who keeps advocating a 2 week shutdown—most experts are saying the peak won’t come until the end of January. So, it’ll be more like 2+months.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We need hybrid as a fall back always.

Please, God!, no hybrid. It was the worst.

Why would you say that? Our family thought hybrid was just fine - no issue with hybrid at all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We need hybrid as a fall back always.

Please, God!, no hybrid. It was the worst.

Why would you say that? Our family thought hybrid was just fine - no issue with hybrid at all.

I'm a spec ed para. Trying to help kids in the classroom and virtually was impossible. The few self sufficient kids did ok. The rest, spec ed or not, didn't.

[Anonymous]

I'm not surprised it happened at my child's (red) school. They have been combining classes when teachers were out. What I am confused about is the outbreak at the school seemed to start a few days before winter break and there were a pretty large number of classes already in quarantine (they sent a list). So technically 14 days passed for a number of those cases, including my DS. So, is it total number of cases they are going by?