Transparency Tool

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Isn't it sad that students had to take matters into own hand? Have been saying this, students can create a bus tracking app too, but it's beyond embarrassing that they need to b/c hard working taxpayers are not being used for legitimate needs.

taxpayers' $

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Dear Community Members,
Hi! I'm Eric, one of the members of the Ripple team.

We have closely followed the community's ongoing discussions regarding infrastructure challenges, budget allocation, and student support services. We understand your concerns and have been following your recent testimonies to the Board of Education about pressing issues from maintenance to security. As students, we greatly appreciate the work you guys do, and we understand the critical importance of maintaining safe, functional school environments. Recognizing the need for action, we decided to take matters into our own hands—creating our solution, Ripple.

Ripple is a secure, easy-to-use, student-built reporting system that transforms how facility and maintenance issues are handled in MCPS, ensuring much-needed transparency and accountability. It enables:

- Quick submission of maintenance reports for students, staff, administrators, and community members to ensure every voice is heard
- Real-time issue tracking and transparent, centralized data collection
- Data visualization of maintenance patterns
- Direct, transparent two-way dialogue with MCPS administrators

Ripple streamlines the reporting process, preventing seemingly minor issues—from the lack of consistent menstrual product restocking to closed bathrooms bathroom access—from escalating into significant problems, ensuring a consistently well-maintained environment for everyone. School administrators can efficiently manage these reports through customizable response templates and grouping features—guaranteeing that no report is left in the dark.

Furthermore, our centralized data collection allows for trend analysis. As patterns emerge from the data, administrators can identify recurring issues and address them proactively and much more efficiently. This approach reduces the burden on the current KFI infrastructure system by allowing it to focus mainly on major capital improvements. At the same time, Ripple handles the immediate needs that affect daily school operations.

We're working to implement Ripple for free across all 210 MCPS schools. We recently presented this solution at the 11/7 Board meeting and would love your feedback. We'd be happy to schedule a live demonstration or meeting with any community group to show and discuss more details!

Thanks again,
Eric and the Ripple Team
[e-mail]

(

at 39:11)

And? Then what? You will have a list of what MCPS refused to do. Everyone knows when the BOE freezes copy paper supplies.
There will be a list of schools without copy paper from the App.
There are already lists of what schools need.

Bigger issue is who runs Ripple when you graduate?

What does this question mean? The students can continue to run Ripple, and if paid, they will be legally binded to offer professional and up-to-date maintenance.

IF paid? With what money?

You want these kids to have a no bid contract with MCPS.

When these kids graduate they are gone. $25,000 divided by 4 is not worth their time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:While I love the entrepreneurialism and ingenuity on display here by MCPS students, I don't think it's wise or responsible to implement a student-built app to monitor and evaluate operations on an enterprise as vast and complex as MCPS.

You all will be learning as you go and that's not something a school system like MCPS can or should bear the costs of. MCPS needs enterprise-grade, best-in-class solutions.

I disagree, these kids obviously had the technical knowledge to make the app in the first place so I dont think its fair to say that they are learning as they go. In the video they also pitch the app as being less than 25,000 dollars compared to the millions mcps spends on other softwares.

The cost is less than $25,000 so they can do it without BOE approval. By law, over $25,000 has to go before full BOE and there must be justification for not taking competitive bids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Isn't it sad that students had to take matters into own hand? Have been saying this, students can create a bus tracking app too, but it's beyond embarrassing that they need to b/c hard working taxpayers are not being used for legitimate needs.

Agreed!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Isn't it sad that students had to take matters into own hand? Have been saying this, students can create a bus tracking app too, but it's beyond embarrassing that they need to b/c hard working taxpayers are not being used for legitimate needs.

Agreed!

MCPS has a way to report maintenance requests.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vQJQawgNs6ZZpmUXXri02n7D5meHWN_qZB1witR-fr9oOI452mbA0Z9sK3d5shnuWASq_v1rwdQaZhk/pub

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Dear Community Members,
Hi! I'm Eric, one of the members of the Ripple team.

We have closely followed the community's ongoing discussions regarding infrastructure challenges, budget allocation, and student support services. We understand your concerns and have been following your recent testimonies to the Board of Education about pressing issues from maintenance to security. As students, we greatly appreciate the work you guys do, and we understand the critical importance of maintaining safe, functional school environments. Recognizing the need for action, we decided to take matters into our own hands—creating our solution, Ripple.

Ripple is a secure, easy-to-use, student-built reporting system that transforms how facility and maintenance issues are handled in MCPS, ensuring much-needed transparency and accountability. It enables:

- Quick submission of maintenance reports for students, staff, administrators, and community members to ensure every voice is heard
- Real-time issue tracking and transparent, centralized data collection
- Data visualization of maintenance patterns
- Direct, transparent two-way dialogue with MCPS administrators

Ripple streamlines the reporting process, preventing seemingly minor issues—from the lack of consistent menstrual product restocking to closed bathrooms bathroom access—from escalating into significant problems, ensuring a consistently well-maintained environment for everyone. School administrators can efficiently manage these reports through customizable response templates and grouping features—guaranteeing that no report is left in the dark.

Furthermore, our centralized data collection allows for trend analysis. As patterns emerge from the data, administrators can identify recurring issues and address them proactively and much more efficiently. This approach reduces the burden on the current KFI infrastructure system by allowing it to focus mainly on major capital improvements. At the same time, Ripple handles the immediate needs that affect daily school operations.

We're working to implement Ripple for free across all 210 MCPS schools. We recently presented this solution at the 11/7 Board meeting and would love your feedback. We'd be happy to schedule a live demonstration or meeting with any community group to show and discuss more details!

Thanks again,
Eric and the Ripple Team
[e-mail]

(

at 39:11)

And? Then what? You will have a list of what MCPS refused to do. Everyone knows when the BOE freezes copy paper supplies.
There will be a list of schools without copy paper from the App.
There are already lists of what schools need.

Bigger issue is who runs Ripple when you graduate?

What does this question mean? The students can continue to run Ripple, and if paid, they will be legally binded to offer professional and up-to-date maintenance.

IF paid? With what money?

You want these kids to have a no bid contract with MCPS.

When these kids graduate they are gone. $25,000 divided by 4 is not worth their time.

Correct. This is going to die as soon as the kids get into college.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:While I love the entrepreneurialism and ingenuity on display here by MCPS students, I don't think it's wise or responsible to implement a student-built app to monitor and evaluate operations on an enterprise as vast and complex as MCPS.

You all will be learning as you go and that's not something a school system like MCPS can or should bear the costs of. MCPS needs enterprise-grade, best-in-class solutions.

I don't know. We pay a fortune for Canvas and they are refusing to learn as they go. Can this be any worse?

[Anonymous]

What is Taylor's plan to overhaul the tech. Canvas is terrible.