Why can't MoCo be broken into smaller geographic snow zones?
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Anonymous
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Year after year of no-snow snow days. Now 3 days in a row, when, at least in my area, it's totally absurd.
The county is just too damn big. What possible arguments are there against snow day decisions based on smaller zones? |
Anonymous
| Goes against “equity” |
Anonymous
Idiot |
Anonymous
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That's not the issue. The issue seems to be that people think their car tires will suddenly explode if they touch of patch of snow on the road. Same for shoes and snow on sidewalks.
You need to reset people's expectations. |
Anonymous
| School closed tomorrow? |
Anonymous
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I think the issue is that Maryland requires schools to be run by counties. As we have students who move all throughout the county and busses who run through different parts, it would be impossible to separate.
We need Maryland to allow smaller school zones so that Montgomery county does not all have to be grouped together. |
Anonymous
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This comes up all the time. Many kids go to school outside of the cluster. Some have chosen to do that but some are bussed for special ed needs. There are also teachers and specialists that work in multiple schools in different clusters. It snows so rarely that I do not think the complications are worth it.
I do think people have very high standards for clearing snow. |
Anonymous
That's never changing. We're better off doing public service announcements explaining that it is possible to drive and walk on snow. |
Anonymous
| Yawn 🥱 |
Anonymous
| It’s 3 days. By next week, all this craziness will be forgotten |
Anonymous
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Oh good, it's "snow day whining bingo." Someone has brought up breaking up the county for the 10000th time.
It's a state requirement that school districts be run by counties, first of all. Second of all, MCPS transports students all over the place. Some special ed programs, like Extensions or GT/LD, have only a couple of sites in the county. Other programs like Learning Centers might pull from clusters as far apart as Rockville and Poolesville. Transportation for these students is an IEP-mandated service and saying something like "Odessa Shannon MS is open except for Extensions which is closed, or gets no busing" is an IEP violation and a denial of FAPE. These students are legally entitled to those services, and to the bus that gets them there. In places where they run schools by township, they don't have the diversity of programs that MCPS does, or they pay through the nose for out-of-district placements and transportation. Now that it's been set up this way, it is extremely difficult to impossible to unwind. Open more programs geographically, you might say! Well, they can barely staff and fund the ones they already have. So close some of them, you might say! Who cares about those kids? Then you would be That Person and should not be listened to anyway. |
Anonymous
No, then we'll still be fighting over the make-up day. By the time we pick that, we'll have another snow day or two. And that will lead to another fight over make-up days. Along the way, someone will bring up the elephant in the room that next year's calendar makes this problem worse. And if the BoE can grow a backbone, they'll adjust the calendar. Leading to more fights. |
Anonymous
| Every other district in the area is closed. This is about where you live and the relative local tolerance for snow, not anything to do with how MCPS is structured. Go further north or west and you'll see more tolerance, go further south and you'll see less. |
Anonymous
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Anonymous
Strictly speaking, you wouldn't have to. When I grew up, our school was open days when buses couldn't go to every house. The usual reason was snow, but every couple of years a flood would close some roads and bridges and knock out a much larger group of students for a few days. Some of them would get a long ride to school through an alternate route, but others would just miss those days. |