8 Things to Know Community Message Email today

[Anonymous]

OP, I agree. We are in our 11th year with MCPS. I find these emails utterly useless and am irritating that they are paying people to write them. Please just send us actually important info—like when you add extra half days mid year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I agree the blurb about the kid getting the full scholarship was odd.

Yeah I mean great for her, absolutely. But really weird place to put it and just bizarre to highlight.

[Anonymous]

I suggest spending more time reading MCPS email, and less time posting on DCUM.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Except I have to read it because there might be something relevant. And it’s buried in a bunch of crap I don’t need to know about. And they place literally thousands of parents in this position every time they send an email.

This is the problem. If they send communications and you miss it, MCPSs attitude is that it’s your fault. But then they inundate you with so much information that it makes it effectively a second job to sift through it all and then also to analyze and interpret what they are saying.

Op here. Yes, this is my point. Growing up my parents did not spend this much time on supporting me in school and they were not having to read upwards of 5-10 emails and communications per week and sift through each one to find the important points and action items for multiple kids, on top of both having to work. To assume all families have the time to read this stuff, the ability to read it at all (eg non English speaking families, folks who cannot read or have low literacy), is crazy. The administrative burden of having children has gotten far too high and it’s frankly lazy communicators at the county level who decide to just throw anything that “might” be important into an email of over 1,000 words and expect people to read it week after week. It places an incredible burden burden on families and particularly families with single parents or both parents who work.

Oh, I agree. They should hire people to evaluate each family’s personal interests and needs and send a personalized email with only the items the family is interested in reading about.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I agree the blurb about the kid getting the full scholarship was odd.

I’m glad someone else thought it was a weird plug in to the newsletter.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Except I have to read it because there might be something relevant. And it’s buried in a bunch of crap I don’t need to know about. And they place literally thousands of parents in this position every time they send an email.

This is the problem. If they send communications and you miss it, MCPSs attitude is that it’s your fault. But then they inundate you with so much information that it makes it effectively a second job to sift through it all and then also to analyze and interpret what they are saying.

Op here. Yes, this is my point. Growing up my parents did not spend this much time on supporting me in school and they were not having to read upwards of 5-10 emails and communications per week and sift through each one to find the important points and action items for multiple kids, on top of both having to work. To assume all families have the time to read this stuff, the ability to read it at all (eg non English speaking families, folks who cannot read or have low literacy), is crazy. The administrative burden of having children has gotten far too high and it’s frankly lazy communicators at the county level who decide to just throw anything that “might” be important into an email of over 1,000 words and expect people to read it week after week. It places an incredible burden burden on families and particularly families with single parents or both parents who work.

Oh, I agree. They should hire people to evaluate each family’s personal interests and needs and send a personalized email with only the items the family is interested in reading about.

No that’s not it. But many of the items are not relevant. It’s not necessary or reasonable to expect over 100K people to read about someone who got a full ride to Spelman. High school sex Ed communication should come from the high school to their parents. The parent vue entry is stupid since parents can’t actually edit their info and our schools send forms and we make hand written changes on them. I could go on. It’s just lazy communications work to throw the kitchen sink and people and expect them to read it all, especially if they care so much about equity and supporting ALL families.

[Anonymous]

Maybe the title is a little misleading because those aren’t things everybody needs to know.

I appreciate the communication but when I first started receiving this text I clicked on every single link thinking that all of the information was important and relevant, it wasn’t.

But I think it’s better to have the information public than not communicating at all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Maybe the title is a little misleading because those aren’t things everybody needs to know.

I appreciate the communication but when I first started receiving this text I clicked on every single link thinking that all of the information was important and relevant, it wasn’t.

But I think it’s better to have the information public than not communicating at all.

I can accept that the title is a little misleading, though I never really took it literally. But if they renamed it to something like "Weekly Updates" maybe that would set the proper tone?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Maybe the title is a little misleading because those aren’t things everybody needs to know.

I appreciate the communication but when I first started receiving this text I clicked on every single link thinking that all of the information was important and relevant, it wasn’t.

But I think it’s better to have the information public than not communicating at all.

I can accept that the title is a little misleading, though I never really took it literally. But if they renamed it to something like "Weekly Updates" maybe that would set the proper tone?

Yes and that would be a good title and I take my titles and headlines very seriously .

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I agree the blurb about the kid getting the full scholarship was odd.

Yeah I mean great for her, absolutely. But really weird place to put it and just bizarre to highlight.

Agreed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Maybe the title is a little misleading because those aren’t things everybody needs to know.

I appreciate the communication but when I first started receiving this text I clicked on every single link thinking that all of the information was important and relevant, it wasn’t.

But I think it’s better to have the information public than not communicating at all.

I can accept that the title is a little misleading, though I never really took it literally. But if they renamed it to something like "Weekly Updates" maybe that would set the proper tone?

Isn’t that what FB and Twitter are for? So people that really care about every little thing can follow them there? I only want mail if it’s actually likely to be relevant, like changes in calendar, major curriculum changes, big systemwide problems, a school shooting or active shooter, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I agree the blurb about the kid getting the full scholarship was odd.

I’m glad someone else thought it was a weird plug in to the newsletter.

Why were they highlighting this particular student in the 8 Things to Know? It was weird and misplaced.

Also, boosters? Why is MCPS pushing boosters in its newsletter. Leave that to the Health Department.

Agree with the PP - clearly they need to re-name this email.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Maybe the title is a little misleading because those aren’t things everybody needs to know.

I appreciate the communication but when I first started receiving this text I clicked on every single link thinking that all of the information was important and relevant, it wasn’t.

But I think it’s better to have the information public than not communicating at all.

I can accept that the title is a little misleading, though I never really took it literally. But if they renamed it to something like "Weekly Updates" maybe that would set the proper tone?

Isn’t that what FB and Twitter are for? So people that really care about every little thing can follow them there? I only want mail if it’s actually likely to be relevant, like changes in calendar, major curriculum changes, big systemwide problems, a school shooting or active shooter, etc.

Same here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Except I have to read it because there might be something relevant. And it’s buried in a bunch of crap I don’t need to know about. And they place literally thousands of parents in this position every time they send an email.

This is the problem. If they send communications and you miss it, MCPSs attitude is that it’s your fault. But then they inundate you with so much information that it makes it effectively a second job to sift through it all and then also to analyze and interpret what they are saying.

"MCPS's attitdue"? Really? You interact with "MCPS"? MCPS is a large organization. It doesn't give you attitude any more than they send individually selected information pertinent to each individual recipient. Get over yourself.

Thanks for providing a good example of the “attitude”. MCPS can never do wrong or make mistakes. It’s always us that are wrong, mistaken, misinformed and I guess in this case also self-absorbed. Go figure.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why for the love of God does MCPS send me regular emails and text messages about things I actually don’t need to know about? No, I don’t need to know about a student who got a full ride scholarship to college. I don’t need to know about school bus routes (my kid walks) and I don’t need to know about opting out of a required sex ed class since my kid is in kindergarten. This mass messaging is so non specific, innane, and irrelevant. It is a tremendous waste of the time and energy of thousands and thousands of parents to send us regular communications that are generic and often irrelevant to us. Does MCPS have any actual trained communicators working there? Why don’t they leave it up to individual schools to share relevant info and just stop with these stupid messages
communiques. As it is I am literally drowning in emails from our school PTA, listserv, principal, and my children’s teachers. For the love of God, if MCPS is going to send a mass email it should be relevant to 100 percent of the audience.

Except that the Sex Ed part actually applies to all grades from PreK-12th.