BOE Fall Plan Meeting

[Anonymous]

Did you listen to Mr Gyles? He said that kids can definitely spread the virus. They are vectors.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Gayle just said children can catch it and have complications.

https://montgomerycountymd.gov/covid19/data/

0 deaths in MoCo in 0-17 age group.

447 cases out of 100,000 population

If you don’t trust him, how can we reopen schools?

Kids will probably be okay if they get it, but their teachers, parents, and grandparents not so much.

Think about the many low income students at my school who live in crowded multigenerational households. That’s a lot of potential trauma. And there are usually 3 or 4 a year who are in family foster care with a grandparent raising them. If that grandparent dies, they will be placed with strangers or even in a group home.

Except the kid isn't getting it at school and giving it to the grandparent. That's not how this works.

We don't know how this works. Think about everything we "knew" a month ago. This is a new virus. We're going to learn new things about it as we go.

At this point, actually, there's quite a bit of evidence that that's not how it works.

I've seen the links. All the studies are of extraordinarily small groups, which undermine their accuracy. For the international examples, there are some that say schools aren't vectors (like France and Denmark), and some that suggest they are (like South Korea, Israel, Canada and China).

We don't know.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Gayle just said children can catch it and have complications.

https://montgomerycountymd.gov/covid19/data/

0 deaths in MoCo in 0-17 age group.

447 cases out of 100,000 population

If you don’t trust him, how can we reopen schools?

Kids will probably be okay if they get it, but their teachers, parents, and grandparents not so much.

Think about the many low income students at my school who live in crowded multigenerational households. That’s a lot of potential trauma. And there are usually 3 or 4 a year who are in family foster care with a grandparent raising them. If that grandparent dies, they will be placed with strangers or even in a group home.

Except the kid isn't getting it at school and giving it to the grandparent. That's not how this works.

We don't know how this works. Think about everything we "knew" a month ago. This is a new virus. We're going to learn new things about it as we go.

Think about grandparents who will have to walk the younger kids to and from school. There will be a lot of time waiting to get through that whole health survey process. Some may need to take the public bus in inclement weather in order to get the child there or pick them up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:HS courses with only 1 or 2 teachers (some electives) - student may be in-person at school, but for that class they would be learning online with the teacher if the teacher is unavailable to come in to school.

So my kid is supposed to go to school for "in-person" instruction via Chromebook? Seriously?

I was actually relieved to hear this. I know Fairfax said there might be courses that aren’t offered this year at all if there aren’t enough students/teachers to justify offering them. I’d rather DC take a course virtually than not at all, and I’m glad that needing to take one course virtually does not prevent us from choosing the hybrid option.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Finally - the hybrid question for the out-of-school cohort for ES.

The student's will not be directly engaging with their teacher, but the system is looking at outside partners to give help. More opportunities for synchronous instruction will be people not teacher of record. (It's only the 2 days in-person right now.)

Oh, this definitely needs fleshing out and additional clarification. That means hybrid kids would see their actual teachers 2 days a week (or once each for MS and HS kids due to block scheduling), and then have some kind of external partner (not a regular school teacher) for two other days. I want to know what content will be delivered by the external partners and what that really looks like. Does that mean for MS/HS kids, they only have direct contact with their class teachers 4 times every 3 weeks?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Finally - the hybrid question for the out-of-school cohort for ES.

The student's will not be directly engaging with their teacher, but the system is looking at outside partners to give help. More opportunities for synchronous instruction will be people not teacher of record. (It's only the 2 days in-person right now.)

Oh, this definitely needs fleshing out and additional clarification. That means hybrid kids would see their actual teachers 2 days a week (or once each for MS and HS kids due to block scheduling), and then have some kind of external partner (not a regular school teacher) for two other days. I want to know what content will be delivered by the external partners and what that really looks like. Does that mean for MS/HS kids, they only have direct contact with their class teachers 4 times every 3 weeks?

Yes. This needs a lot of clarification before parents choose how their child attends school this fall.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have been watching since 1230 and my biggest takeaway is that I appear to be entirely qualified to be on the BoE. The student member seems to be the most intelligent and thoughtful, and is asking the best questions. Most of the others do not appear to be paying attention.

First time watching a BOE meeting? I didn't watch this one -- was it only one member who suggested praying as a solution? Last meeting, it was 2 members who did this. Did 79-year-old Docca fall asleep again? This meeting came during her naptime.

I'm all for having educators on the BOE, but we need people with experience in private industry, like in logistics and project management too. I'll bet few BOE members asked for hard numbers, like what % of a typical school capacity can we use with restrictions in place, or how many weeks unti all schools are retrofitted for the new requirements (hand sanitizing stations, etc).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Gayle just said children can catch it and have complications.

https://montgomerycountymd.gov/covid19/data/

0 deaths in MoCo in 0-17 age group.

447 cases out of 100,000 population

If you don’t trust him, how can we reopen schools?

Kids will probably be okay if they get it, but their teachers, parents, and grandparents not so much.

Think about the many low income students at my school who live in crowded multigenerational households. That’s a lot of potential trauma. And there are usually 3 or 4 a year who are in family foster care with a grandparent raising them. If that grandparent dies, they will be placed with strangers or even in a group home.

Except the kid isn't getting it at school and giving it to the grandparent. That's not how this works.

We don't know how this works. Think about everything we "knew" a month ago. This is a new virus. We're going to learn new things about it as we go.

At this point, actually, there's quite a bit of evidence that that's not how it works.

I've seen the links. All the studies are of extraordinarily small groups, which undermine their accuracy. For the international examples, there are some that say schools aren't vectors (like France and Denmark), and some that suggest they are (like South Korea, Israel, Canada and China).

We don't know.

Research scientist here. The bolded is correct. For now, caution dictates we consider children to transmit just as much as adults, because the evidence to the contrary is not credible.

[Anonymous]

Then let’s stop wasting time and just work on getting the best DL ever.

+1000

THIS!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Did they just make mention of no fall high school sports? Is there more clarity on that?

Smondrowski said that there wouldn't be any fall sports but also that parents are waiting to get definitive answers on questions like this. She's proposed assembling an "official" FAQ to help address the volume of emails she's getting from parents with questions like this. She's saying she will email a proposal for this FAQ to other board members.

It would be helpful to have a FAQ, but the Qs on the FAQ should be the Qs that people actually have, and there should be answers to them in plain language that people can understand.

In the draft plan, the answer to the question “how will face coverings be enforced?” was “in accordance with state and local regulations.”

No word on whether they plan to expel a first grader who keeps pulling off his mask in reading group.

They can just love the first grader to the online only group. No longer allowed in school,

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Finally - the hybrid question for the out-of-school cohort for ES.

The student's will not be directly engaging with their teacher, but the system is looking at outside partners to give help. More opportunities for synchronous instruction will be people not teacher of record. (It's only the 2 days in-person right now.)

Oh, this definitely needs fleshing out and additional clarification. That means hybrid kids would see their actual teachers 2 days a week (or once each for MS and HS kids due to block scheduling), and then have some kind of external partner (not a regular school teacher) for two other days. I want to know what content will be delivered by the external partners and what that really looks like. Does that mean for MS/HS kids, they only have direct contact with their class teachers 4 times every 3 weeks?

Quite honestly, I’d rather have 3 days of asynchronous instruction than 2 days of synchronous instruction with someone other than my kids’ teachers. At least with asynchronous we can choose the schedule that works best for us. My kids are in MS.

[Anonymous]

Question:

Has anyone addressed standardized testing during distance learning, specifically MAP and Cogat (magnet) tests?

Thank you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Finally - the hybrid question for the out-of-school cohort for ES.

The student's will not be directly engaging with their teacher, but the system is looking at outside partners to give help. More opportunities for synchronous instruction will be people not teacher of record. (It's only the 2 days in-person right now.)

Oh, this definitely needs fleshing out and additional clarification. That means hybrid kids would see their actual teachers 2 days a week (or once each for MS and HS kids due to block scheduling), and then have some kind of external partner (not a regular school teacher) for two other days. I want to know what content will be delivered by the external partners and what that really looks like. Does that mean for MS/HS kids, they only have direct contact with their class teachers 4 times every 3 weeks?

Quite honestly, I’d rather have 3 days of asynchronous instruction than 2 days of synchronous instruction with someone other than my kids’ teachers. At least with asynchronous we can choose the schedule that works best for us. My kids are in MS.

I totally agree.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Then let’s stop wasting time and just work on getting the best DL ever.

+1000

THIS!

Many places doing this and educators advocating for it. It’s a heavy lift to do it well, but with the right PD, we can make it happen.
- teacher trainer

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Then let’s stop wasting time and just work on getting the best DL ever.

+1000

THIS!

Many places doing this and educators advocating for it. It’s a heavy lift to do it well, but with the right PD, we can make it happen.
- teacher trainer

Well, it's going to happen, whether people like it or not.

The second wave is coming to the DC area, and I hope you're all ready for it.