Virtual Learning - Why Not MCPS?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Man, I know that there are some pandemic-era parents whose kids had a hard time and are kind of scarre from those days, but can y'all try to step back and be rational rather than react emotionally from a "I hated the COVID year" place? The rest of us are tired of our kids losing multiple days of education every year due to snow days and would like our kids to actually get some learning in rather than those useless last few days of school. We get it, not all kids learn well online, but you guys act like it's the end of the world .. pretty clearly some kind of trauma response, and again, I get it, but fake a breath and try to move through it.

You must be an online learner as you've failed to read this thread where it has been pointed out that:

1) Virtual learning didn't just fail during the pandemic. It also failed during summer school, which is why MCPS is dramatically scaling back on virtual summer school options this year
2) It tried to do an asynchronous learning day in the 2023-2024 school year. It went so poorly the state said MCPS cannot pivot to virtual instruction again with a robust, pressure tested, approved plan and structure to do so.

Insisting MCPS should do something, despite multiple failed attempts at doing so, just because you want them to is definitely a trauma response on your part. Or maybe it's just ignorance. I don't know. But you need to look in the mirror before you start psychoanalyzing anyone else.

There are multiple people posting on this thread pointing out that you have no evidence for your statement that MCPS virtual interventions were worse than doing nothing and that many many school districts are offering virtual learning after this storm because it’s better than…doing nothing.

I know this because I am posting and see others who are not me also posting that also disagree with you.

So maybe you can see psychological support of your own if you think you can accurately judge the motivations and trauma of multiple DCUM posters who are saying that you make no sense and just want an excuse to do nothing at all.

There are equally many posters posting and telling you virtual learning doesn't work. You don't have a monopoly on the facts just because you want virtual learning on snow days.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Man, I know that there are some pandemic-era parents whose kids had a hard time and are kind of scarre from those days, but can y'all try to step back and be rational rather than react emotionally from a "I hated the COVID year" place? The rest of us are tired of our kids losing multiple days of education every year due to snow days and would like our kids to actually get some learning in rather than those useless last few days of school. We get it, not all kids learn well online, but you guys act like it's the end of the world .. pretty clearly some kind of trauma response, and again, I get it, but fake a breath and try to move through it.

You must be an online learner as you've failed to read this thread where it has been pointed out that:

1) Virtual learning didn't just fail during the pandemic. It also failed during summer school, which is why MCPS is dramatically scaling back on virtual summer school options this year
2) It tried to do an asynchronous learning day in the 2023-2024 school year. It went so poorly the state said MCPS cannot pivot to virtual instruction again with a robust, pressure tested, approved plan and structure to do so.

Insisting MCPS should do something, despite multiple failed attempts at doing so, just because you want them to is definitely a trauma response on your part. Or maybe it's just ignorance. I don't know. But you need to look in the mirror before you start psychoanalyzing anyone else.

Can you show us the data? Summer school fails because they are putting a semester into 2-3 weeks. In person or virtual its impossible. The issue with virtual was that parents didn't require their kids to go to school or do the work. You need to look at the MVA data which MCPS refuses to release. And, kids are failing in person. So, where is the excuse for that? In person isn't much better given the test scores and data provided.

MCPS's data on virtual summer school failure can be found in the Jan. 8 presentation to the board: https://go.boarddocs.com/mabe/mcpsmd/Board.nsf/files/DPTUAZ7B2FE7/$file/IGNITE%E2%80%94Summer%20School%202026%20260108%20PPT.pdf

So because MCPS virtual summer school is a failure, snow day virtual school would be a failure and worse than the current status quo of no education for these snow days.

I hope you’re not a teacher, because you have problems with critical thinking.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s no longer true that every student has a Chromebook. Some schools returned to the cart model because parents complained about 1:1.

Every kid in middle and high school has a chromebook all the time.

My kids (bcc cluster) certainly do. I read that Pyle MS moved away to having carts so kids only get Chromebooks when they need them which is not as often, but even if that’s the case, there are enough laptops for every student and central office should have had the foresight to tell schools to distribute them on Thursday and Friday considering every news outlet predicted a major storm.

You must be at Westland. Silver Creek uses the cart model.

The storm was predicted for a week. silver creek could have taken the computers off the cart and sent them home. My MS kid has been using his to do IXL and a few of his teachers posted assignments today due 2 days after school is back in session (whenever that is.)

If MCPS wanted to do virtual, they would have had to come up with a plan, presented it at the BOE, provided an opportunity to have public comment, and then the BOE would have needed to vote to adopt it. It could not be asynchronous; only synchronous instruction counts. These are all state requirements. MCPS did not of these. So no, Silver Creek and other schools could not have simply sent students home with Chromebooks. MUCH more planning would have had to go into it.

If only we had known there was a big storm coming a week ahead of time. Oh wait, we did.

You wanted MCPS to: create a plan, present it to the BoE, open it for public feedback, approve it by the BoE, submit it to the state, inform teachers of the intent to go virtual, have teachers create new lesson plans, etc, all over the course of one week?!?!

MCPS has a billion dollar plus budget. Last year it had 3 extra snow days it didn’t budget for.

Why are you writing as if it’s a shock to the system to expect paid staff members to plan for something that has repeatedly occurred and has been a problem?

DCPs for all its poverty did asynchronous learning today. Other school districts will do virtual learning tomorrow.

Why is MCPS doing nothing but making snow day videos?

What school district is doing synchronous virtual school tomorrow?

A tiny little school district you might of heard of called Baltimore county. They’ve depleted all 3 of their 3 allocated snow days and have moved to virtual.

Compare that to poorly planned MCPS which has used up three snow days despite only allocating one and where posters here are shocked that MCPS might be expected to plan anything after using up way more than it’s allocated snow days last year

Baltimore county moves to virtual Thursday Friday https://nottinghammd.com/2026/01/28/bcps-shifts-to-virtual-learning-on-thursday-friday-harford-co-schools-closed/
Looks like Anne arundel may be doing virtual tomorrow as well.
https://www.cbsnews.com/baltimore/news/maryland-schools-closed-virtual-learning-snow-day/

These are Maryland school districts doing something while MCPS concentrates its resources on snow day videos.

Great. I would like to see:

1) What percentage of kids showed up for the virtual days
2) How engaged those students who showed up for the virtual learning days were
3) What impact those virtual learning days had on their ability to achieve state-required proficiencies in math and reading

Once that data is in, and if it's compelling, then we can say that MCPS is doing something wrong by not following in these two districts' footsteps.

Can you share data first on the impact of providing zero schooling because you’re too lazy to do second best options?

A lot of the data on how poorly virtual learning during COVID went pretty much said that virtual school was pretty much the same as not going to school, in terms of what students were able to achieve with academic benchmarks.

So yeah, the data is out there on virtual learning and how much it sucks on a MASS scale.

You can make it work for a class, assuming the majority of students and families are well-resourced and highly motivated. You can maybe even make it work for a small private school, where everyone is paying and opted-in to education.

You can't make it work well for state-mandated, public school districts that don't get to pick and choose which students and families it serves.

Feel free to cite that research. The research I read states that pandemic period learning online was detrimental to learning outcomes relative to in person learning, but I never read anything that said virtual learning is worse than no learning at all.

Over a lifetime? Sure. But for a week? It's doubtful it makes that much of a difference.

So you have no research to cite. You just don’t like virtual learning and think it’s preferable to add on days in June where kids are encouraged not to come in and teachers play videos.

+1. This. School districts far superior to MCPS are offering virtual learning this week. Private schools too. It’s not perfect but it’s better than losing these days at an important point in the academic year.

What data backs that claim up?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Man, I know that there are some pandemic-era parents whose kids had a hard time and are kind of scarre from those days, but can y'all try to step back and be rational rather than react emotionally from a "I hated the COVID year" place? The rest of us are tired of our kids losing multiple days of education every year due to snow days and would like our kids to actually get some learning in rather than those useless last few days of school. We get it, not all kids learn well online, but you guys act like it's the end of the world .. pretty clearly some kind of trauma response, and again, I get it, but fake a breath and try to move through it.

You must be an online learner as you've failed to read this thread where it has been pointed out that:

1) Virtual learning didn't just fail during the pandemic. It also failed during summer school, which is why MCPS is dramatically scaling back on virtual summer school options this year
2) It tried to do an asynchronous learning day in the 2023-2024 school year. It went so poorly the state said MCPS cannot pivot to virtual instruction again with a robust, pressure tested, approved plan and structure to do so.

Insisting MCPS should do something, despite multiple failed attempts at doing so, just because you want them to is definitely a trauma response on your part. Or maybe it's just ignorance. I don't know. But you need to look in the mirror before you start psychoanalyzing anyone else.

Can you show us the data? Summer school fails because they are putting a semester into 2-3 weeks. In person or virtual its impossible. The issue with virtual was that parents didn't require their kids to go to school or do the work. You need to look at the MVA data which MCPS refuses to release. And, kids are failing in person. So, where is the excuse for that? In person isn't much better given the test scores and data provided.

MCPS's data on virtual summer school failure can be found in the Jan. 8 presentation to the board: https://go.boarddocs.com/mabe/mcpsmd/Board.nsf/files/DPTUAZ7B2FE7/$file/IGNITE%E2%80%94Summer%20School%202026%20260108%20PPT.pdf

So because MCPS virtual summer school is a failure, snow day virtual school would be a failure and worse than the current status quo of no education for these snow days.

I hope you’re not a teacher, because you have problems with critical thinking.

Critical thinking seems to be your dilemma, not mine. You can't read or keep track of the conversation.

Virtual learning in MCPS specifically has failed:

1) During the COVID pandemic
2) During the Asynchronous Learning Day they tried in the 2023-2024 school year
3) In summer school last year

In baseball, three strikes means you're out.

But you want us to keep going and somehow expect different results. Why?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s no longer true that every student has a Chromebook. Some schools returned to the cart model because parents complained about 1:1.

Every kid in middle and high school has a chromebook all the time.

My kids (bcc cluster) certainly do. I read that Pyle MS moved away to having carts so kids only get Chromebooks when they need them which is not as often, but even if that’s the case, there are enough laptops for every student and central office should have had the foresight to tell schools to distribute them on Thursday and Friday considering every news outlet predicted a major storm.

You must be at Westland. Silver Creek uses the cart model.

The storm was predicted for a week. silver creek could have taken the computers off the cart and sent them home. My MS kid has been using his to do IXL and a few of his teachers posted assignments today due 2 days after school is back in session (whenever that is.)

If MCPS wanted to do virtual, they would have had to come up with a plan, presented it at the BOE, provided an opportunity to have public comment, and then the BOE would have needed to vote to adopt it. It could not be asynchronous; only synchronous instruction counts. These are all state requirements. MCPS did not of these. So no, Silver Creek and other schools could not have simply sent students home with Chromebooks. MUCH more planning would have had to go into it.

If only we had known there was a big storm coming a week ahead of time. Oh wait, we did.

You wanted MCPS to: create a plan, present it to the BoE, open it for public feedback, approve it by the BoE, submit it to the state, inform teachers of the intent to go virtual, have teachers create new lesson plans, etc, all over the course of one week?!?!

MCPS has a billion dollar plus budget. Last year it had 3 extra snow days it didn’t budget for.

Why are you writing as if it’s a shock to the system to expect paid staff members to plan for something that has repeatedly occurred and has been a problem?

DCPs for all its poverty did asynchronous learning today. Other school districts will do virtual learning tomorrow.

Why is MCPS doing nothing but making snow day videos?

What school district is doing synchronous virtual school tomorrow?

A tiny little school district you might of heard of called Baltimore county. They’ve depleted all 3 of their 3 allocated snow days and have moved to virtual.

Compare that to poorly planned MCPS which has used up three snow days despite only allocating one and where posters here are shocked that MCPS might be expected to plan anything after using up way more than it’s allocated snow days last year

Baltimore county moves to virtual Thursday Friday https://nottinghammd.com/2026/01/28/bcps-shifts-to-virtual-learning-on-thursday-friday-harford-co-schools-closed/
Looks like Anne arundel may be doing virtual tomorrow as well.
https://www.cbsnews.com/baltimore/news/maryland-schools-closed-virtual-learning-snow-day/

These are Maryland school districts doing something while MCPS concentrates its resources on snow day videos.

Great. I would like to see:

1) What percentage of kids showed up for the virtual days
2) How engaged those students who showed up for the virtual learning days were
3) What impact those virtual learning days had on their ability to achieve state-required proficiencies in math and reading

Once that data is in, and if it's compelling, then we can say that MCPS is doing something wrong by not following in these two districts' footsteps.

Also explain how the virtual school days are providing the services and supports identified in students' IEPs.

If it were virtual, at least they'd get education vs. now nothing is happening. They can do speech and reading groups online and para's can be online to support. Better than going without.

Again, "going without" isn't the alternative. Do you really not understand that MCPS has to make up the days? They can't get a waiver until they use their make-up days in the calendar, which they're not going to do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s no longer true that every student has a Chromebook. Some schools returned to the cart model because parents complained about 1:1.

Every kid in middle and high school has a chromebook all the time.

My kids (bcc cluster) certainly do. I read that Pyle MS moved away to having carts so kids only get Chromebooks when they need them which is not as often, but even if that’s the case, there are enough laptops for every student and central office should have had the foresight to tell schools to distribute them on Thursday and Friday considering every news outlet predicted a major storm.

You must be at Westland. Silver Creek uses the cart model.

The storm was predicted for a week. silver creek could have taken the computers off the cart and sent them home. My MS kid has been using his to do IXL and a few of his teachers posted assignments today due 2 days after school is back in session (whenever that is.)

If MCPS wanted to do virtual, they would have had to come up with a plan, presented it at the BOE, provided an opportunity to have public comment, and then the BOE would have needed to vote to adopt it. It could not be asynchronous; only synchronous instruction counts. These are all state requirements. MCPS did not of these. So no, Silver Creek and other schools could not have simply sent students home with Chromebooks. MUCH more planning would have had to go into it.

If only we had known there was a big storm coming a week ahead of time. Oh wait, we did.

You wanted MCPS to: create a plan, present it to the BoE, open it for public feedback, approve it by the BoE, submit it to the state, inform teachers of the intent to go virtual, have teachers create new lesson plans, etc, all over the course of one week?!?!

MCPS has a billion dollar plus budget. Last year it had 3 extra snow days it didn’t budget for.

Why are you writing as if it’s a shock to the system to expect paid staff members to plan for something that has repeatedly occurred and has been a problem?

DCPs for all its poverty did asynchronous learning today. Other school districts will do virtual learning tomorrow.

Why is MCPS doing nothing but making snow day videos?

What school district is doing synchronous virtual school tomorrow?

A tiny little school district you might of heard of called Baltimore county. They’ve depleted all 3 of their 3 allocated snow days and have moved to virtual.

Compare that to poorly planned MCPS which has used up three snow days despite only allocating one and where posters here are shocked that MCPS might be expected to plan anything after using up way more than it’s allocated snow days last year

Baltimore county moves to virtual Thursday Friday https://nottinghammd.com/2026/01/28/bcps-shifts-to-virtual-learning-on-thursday-friday-harford-co-schools-closed/
Looks like Anne arundel may be doing virtual tomorrow as well.
https://www.cbsnews.com/baltimore/news/maryland-schools-closed-virtual-learning-snow-day/

These are Maryland school districts doing something while MCPS concentrates its resources on snow day videos.

Great. I would like to see:

1) What percentage of kids showed up for the virtual days
2) How engaged those students who showed up for the virtual learning days were
3) What impact those virtual learning days had on their ability to achieve state-required proficiencies in math and reading

Once that data is in, and if it's compelling, then we can say that MCPS is doing something wrong by not following in these two districts' footsteps.

Can you share data first on the impact of providing zero schooling because you’re too lazy to do second best options?

MCPS has to do make-up days. I'm sorry that will disrupt your summer vacation, but you should have known this would happen. Especially after last year.

My kids attended those June make up half days last year. they did nothing but watch videos and play games.

I’m sorry that you don’t want kids to be educated now so they can actually do the assigned curriculum. Especially after last year.

+1. It seems like a lot of MCPS staff just want to do the easy option and not teach.

And that would create just as much of a problem for virtual days. Probably more, since there would be a wide variation between students.

[Anonymous]

The pro-virtual learning people just need to admit that they have anxiety about not seeing their kids doing SOMETHING that looks academic.

They don't care if the worksheets are busy work that doesn't lead to genuine learning.

They don't care if the kids' eyes glaze over from staring at the screen on Zoom for hours at a time.

Forcing their kids to perform school-like activities is more important than impact and outcome.

I disagree, obviously, but those parents should be honest that their panic is more about assuaging their own anxieties and not their kids' development and well-being.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s no longer true that every student has a Chromebook. Some schools returned to the cart model because parents complained about 1:1.

Every kid in middle and high school has a chromebook all the time.

My kids (bcc cluster) certainly do. I read that Pyle MS moved away to having carts so kids only get Chromebooks when they need them which is not as often, but even if that’s the case, there are enough laptops for every student and central office should have had the foresight to tell schools to distribute them on Thursday and Friday considering every news outlet predicted a major storm.

You must be at Westland. Silver Creek uses the cart model.

The storm was predicted for a week. silver creek could have taken the computers off the cart and sent them home. My MS kid has been using his to do IXL and a few of his teachers posted assignments today due 2 days after school is back in session (whenever that is.)

If MCPS wanted to do virtual, they would have had to come up with a plan, presented it at the BOE, provided an opportunity to have public comment, and then the BOE would have needed to vote to adopt it. It could not be asynchronous; only synchronous instruction counts. These are all state requirements. MCPS did not of these. So no, Silver Creek and other schools could not have simply sent students home with Chromebooks. MUCH more planning would have had to go into it.

If only we had known there was a big storm coming a week ahead of time. Oh wait, we did.

You wanted MCPS to: create a plan, present it to the BoE, open it for public feedback, approve it by the BoE, submit it to the state, inform teachers of the intent to go virtual, have teachers create new lesson plans, etc, all over the course of one week?!?!

MCPS has a billion dollar plus budget. Last year it had 3 extra snow days it didn’t budget for.

Why are you writing as if it’s a shock to the system to expect paid staff members to plan for something that has repeatedly occurred and has been a problem?

DCPs for all its poverty did asynchronous learning today. Other school districts will do virtual learning tomorrow.

Why is MCPS doing nothing but making snow day videos?

What school district is doing synchronous virtual school tomorrow?

A tiny little school district you might of heard of called Baltimore county. They’ve depleted all 3 of their 3 allocated snow days and have moved to virtual.

Compare that to poorly planned MCPS which has used up three snow days despite only allocating one and where posters here are shocked that MCPS might be expected to plan anything after using up way more than it’s allocated snow days last year

Baltimore county moves to virtual Thursday Friday https://nottinghammd.com/2026/01/28/bcps-shifts-to-virtual-learning-on-thursday-friday-harford-co-schools-closed/
Looks like Anne arundel may be doing virtual tomorrow as well.
https://www.cbsnews.com/baltimore/news/maryland-schools-closed-virtual-learning-snow-day/

These are Maryland school districts doing something while MCPS concentrates its resources on snow day videos.

Great. I would like to see:

1) What percentage of kids showed up for the virtual days
2) How engaged those students who showed up for the virtual learning days were
3) What impact those virtual learning days had on their ability to achieve state-required proficiencies in math and reading

Once that data is in, and if it's compelling, then we can say that MCPS is doing something wrong by not following in these two districts' footsteps.

Can you share data first on the impact of providing zero schooling because you’re too lazy to do second best options?

A lot of the data on how poorly virtual learning during COVID went pretty much said that virtual school was pretty much the same as not going to school, in terms of what students were able to achieve with academic benchmarks.

So yeah, the data is out there on virtual learning and how much it sucks on a MASS scale.

You can make it work for a class, assuming the majority of students and families are well-resourced and highly motivated. You can maybe even make it work for a small private school, where everyone is paying and opted-in to education.

You can't make it work well for state-mandated, public school districts that don't get to pick and choose which students and families it serves.

Feel free to cite that research. The research I read states that pandemic period learning online was detrimental to learning outcomes relative to in person learning, but I never read anything that said virtual learning is worse than no learning at all.

Over a lifetime? Sure. But for a week? It's doubtful it makes that much of a difference.

So you have no research to cite. You just don’t like virtual learning and think it’s preferable to add on days in June where kids are encouraged not to come in and teachers play videos.

+1. This. School districts far superior to MCPS are offering virtual learning this week. Private schools too. It’s not perfect but it’s better than losing these days at an important point in the academic year.

What data backs that claim up?

Many school districts are offering virtual learning this week, and many are districts with better educational outcomes than MCPS. Can you show us data that it's better for educational outcomes to do the current MCPS status quo of adding three half days than to end June and sending out emails that no curricular instruction will be provided?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Man, I know that there are some pandemic-era parents whose kids had a hard time and are kind of scarre from those days, but can y'all try to step back and be rational rather than react emotionally from a "I hated the COVID year" place? The rest of us are tired of our kids losing multiple days of education every year due to snow days and would like our kids to actually get some learning in rather than those useless last few days of school. We get it, not all kids learn well online, but you guys act like it's the end of the world .. pretty clearly some kind of trauma response, and again, I get it, but fake a breath and try to move through it.

You must be an online learner as you've failed to read this thread where it has been pointed out that:

1) Virtual learning didn't just fail during the pandemic. It also failed during summer school, which is why MCPS is dramatically scaling back on virtual summer school options this year
2) It tried to do an asynchronous learning day in the 2023-2024 school year. It went so poorly the state said MCPS cannot pivot to virtual instruction again with a robust, pressure tested, approved plan and structure to do so.

Insisting MCPS should do something, despite multiple failed attempts at doing so, just because you want them to is definitely a trauma response on your part. Or maybe it's just ignorance. I don't know. But you need to look in the mirror before you start psychoanalyzing anyone else.

Can you show us the data? Summer school fails because they are putting a semester into 2-3 weeks. In person or virtual its impossible. The issue with virtual was that parents didn't require their kids to go to school or do the work. You need to look at the MVA data which MCPS refuses to release. And, kids are failing in person. So, where is the excuse for that? In person isn't much better given the test scores and data provided.

MCPS's data on virtual summer school failure can be found in the Jan. 8 presentation to the board: https://go.boarddocs.com/mabe/mcpsmd/Board.nsf/files/DPTUAZ7B2FE7/$file/IGNITE%E2%80%94Summer%20School%202026%20260108%20PPT.pdf

So because MCPS virtual summer school is a failure, snow day virtual school would be a failure and worse than the current status quo of no education for these snow days.

I hope you’re not a teacher, because you have problems with critical thinking.

Critical thinking seems to be your dilemma, not mine. You can't read or keep track of the conversation.

Virtual learning in MCPS specifically has failed:

1) During the COVID pandemic
2) During the Asynchronous Learning Day they tried in the 2023-2024 school year
3) In summer school last year

In baseball, three strikes means you're out.

But you want us to keep going and somehow expect different results. Why?

You haven't shown us any data that supports your argument that virtual learning is worse than providing no education at all during these snow days.
1) You have not cited data that MCPS virtual learning during the pandemic failed relative to the available option of providing no education at all.
2) The asynchonous learning day "evidence" someone cited upthread was a magazine article that had students and parents complaining that their Jewish student was forced to do assignments on a Jewish holiday and that teachers didn't post the assignments on time. That's not evidence of a systematic failure of virtual learning.
3) Summer school is a narrow swath of MCPS students who are not representative of the whole of MCPS. A very small percentage of MCPS students are summer school students. And people upthread have pointed to design implementation issues (trying to cram in a full semester course into two weeks) as reasons of failure, not an indictment of virtual learning overall.

School districts all over the Northeast have moved to virtual learning because it's a major snowstorm and the best available option. Somehow they can manage to get virtual learning approved quickly and deploy it. MCPS can not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s no longer true that every student has a Chromebook. Some schools returned to the cart model because parents complained about 1:1.

Every kid in middle and high school has a chromebook all the time.

My kids (bcc cluster) certainly do. I read that Pyle MS moved away to having carts so kids only get Chromebooks when they need them which is not as often, but even if that’s the case, there are enough laptops for every student and central office should have had the foresight to tell schools to distribute them on Thursday and Friday considering every news outlet predicted a major storm.

You must be at Westland. Silver Creek uses the cart model.

The storm was predicted for a week. silver creek could have taken the computers off the cart and sent them home. My MS kid has been using his to do IXL and a few of his teachers posted assignments today due 2 days after school is back in session (whenever that is.)

If MCPS wanted to do virtual, they would have had to come up with a plan, presented it at the BOE, provided an opportunity to have public comment, and then the BOE would have needed to vote to adopt it. It could not be asynchronous; only synchronous instruction counts. These are all state requirements. MCPS did not of these. So no, Silver Creek and other schools could not have simply sent students home with Chromebooks. MUCH more planning would have had to go into it.

If only we had known there was a big storm coming a week ahead of time. Oh wait, we did.

You wanted MCPS to: create a plan, present it to the BoE, open it for public feedback, approve it by the BoE, submit it to the state, inform teachers of the intent to go virtual, have teachers create new lesson plans, etc, all over the course of one week?!?!

MCPS has a billion dollar plus budget. Last year it had 3 extra snow days it didn’t budget for.

Why are you writing as if it’s a shock to the system to expect paid staff members to plan for something that has repeatedly occurred and has been a problem?

DCPs for all its poverty did asynchronous learning today. Other school districts will do virtual learning tomorrow.

Why is MCPS doing nothing but making snow day videos?

What school district is doing synchronous virtual school tomorrow?

A tiny little school district you might of heard of called Baltimore county. They’ve depleted all 3 of their 3 allocated snow days and have moved to virtual.

Compare that to poorly planned MCPS which has used up three snow days despite only allocating one and where posters here are shocked that MCPS might be expected to plan anything after using up way more than it’s allocated snow days last year

Baltimore county moves to virtual Thursday Friday https://nottinghammd.com/2026/01/28/bcps-shifts-to-virtual-learning-on-thursday-friday-harford-co-schools-closed/
Looks like Anne arundel may be doing virtual tomorrow as well.
https://www.cbsnews.com/baltimore/news/maryland-schools-closed-virtual-learning-snow-day/

These are Maryland school districts doing something while MCPS concentrates its resources on snow day videos.

Great. I would like to see:

1) What percentage of kids showed up for the virtual days
2) How engaged those students who showed up for the virtual learning days were
3) What impact those virtual learning days had on their ability to achieve state-required proficiencies in math and reading

Once that data is in, and if it's compelling, then we can say that MCPS is doing something wrong by not following in these two districts' footsteps.

Also explain how the virtual school days are providing the services and supports identified in students' IEPs.

If it were virtual, at least they'd get education vs. now nothing is happening. They can do speech and reading groups online and para's can be online to support. Better than going without.

Again, "going without" isn't the alternative. Do you really not understand that MCPS has to make up the days? They can't get a waiver until they use their make-up days in the calendar, which they're not going to do.

Half days tacked onto the end of the year is essentially going without. Just because your kid doesn't like virtual doesn't mean the rest of our kids should be deprived of in-year learning.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:Man, I know that there are some pandemic-era parents whose kids had a hard time and are kind of scarre from those days, but can y'all try to step back and be rational rather than react emotionally from a "I hated the COVID year" place? The rest of us are tired of our kids losing multiple days of education every year due to snow days and would like our kids to actually get some learning in rather than those useless last few days of school. We get it, not all kids learn well online, but you guys act like it's the end of the world .. pretty clearly some kind of trauma response, and again, I get it, but fake a breath and try to move through it.

You must be an online learner as you've failed to read this thread where it has been pointed out that:

1) Virtual learning didn't just fail during the pandemic. It also failed during summer school, which is why MCPS is dramatically scaling back on virtual summer school options this year
2) It tried to do an asynchronous learning day in the 2023-2024 school year. It went so poorly the state said MCPS cannot pivot to virtual instruction again with a robust, pressure tested, approved plan and structure to do so.

Insisting MCPS should do something, despite multiple failed attempts at doing so, just because you want them to is definitely a trauma response on your part. Or maybe it's just ignorance. I don't know. But you need to look in the mirror before you start psychoanalyzing anyone else.

Can you show us the data? Summer school fails because they are putting a semester into 2-3 weeks. In person or virtual its impossible. The issue with virtual was that parents didn't require their kids to go to school or do the work. You need to look at the MVA data which MCPS refuses to release. And, kids are failing in person. So, where is the excuse for that? In person isn't much better given the test scores and data provided.

MCPS's data on virtual summer school failure can be found in the Jan. 8 presentation to the board: https://go.boarddocs.com/mabe/mcpsmd/Board.nsf/files/DPTUAZ7B2FE7/$file/IGNITE%E2%80%94Summer%20School%202026%20260108%20PPT.pdf

So because MCPS virtual summer school is a failure, snow day virtual school would be a failure and worse than the current status quo of no education for these snow days.

I hope you’re not a teacher, because you have problems with critical thinking.

Critical thinking seems to be your dilemma, not mine. You can't read or keep track of the conversation.

Virtual learning in MCPS specifically has failed:

1) During the COVID pandemic
2) During the Asynchronous Learning Day they tried in the 2023-2024 school year
3) In summer school last year

In baseball, three strikes means you're out.

But you want us to keep going and somehow expect different results. Why?

You haven't shown us any data that supports your argument that virtual learning is worse than providing no education at all during these snow days.
1) You have not cited data that MCPS virtual learning during the pandemic failed relative to the available option of providing no education at all.
2) The asynchonous learning day "evidence" someone cited upthread was a magazine article that had students and parents complaining that their Jewish student was forced to do assignments on a Jewish holiday and that teachers didn't post the assignments on time. That's not evidence of a systematic failure of virtual learning.
3) Summer school is a narrow swath of MCPS students who are not representative of the whole of MCPS. A very small percentage of MCPS students are summer school students. And people upthread have pointed to design implementation issues (trying to cram in a full semester course into two weeks) as reasons of failure, not an indictment of virtual learning overall.

School districts all over the Northeast have moved to virtual learning because it's a major snowstorm and the best available option. Somehow they can manage to get virtual learning approved quickly and deploy it. MCPS can not.

We are both without data.

You don't have data that proves virtual instruction on snow days is meaningfully better than no instruction, nor do I.

All we have is our opinions. So we're both in the same boat.

I do have evidence of several virtual instructional failures in the district, which I already cited.

May the best opinion win.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:It’s no longer true that every student has a Chromebook. Some schools returned to the cart model because parents complained about 1:1.

Every kid in middle and high school has a chromebook all the time.

My kids (bcc cluster) certainly do. I read that Pyle MS moved away to having carts so kids only get Chromebooks when they need them which is not as often, but even if that’s the case, there are enough laptops for every student and central office should have had the foresight to tell schools to distribute them on Thursday and Friday considering every news outlet predicted a major storm.

You must be at Westland. Silver Creek uses the cart model.

The storm was predicted for a week. silver creek could have taken the computers off the cart and sent them home. My MS kid has been using his to do IXL and a few of his teachers posted assignments today due 2 days after school is back in session (whenever that is.)

If MCPS wanted to do virtual, they would have had to come up with a plan, presented it at the BOE, provided an opportunity to have public comment, and then the BOE would have needed to vote to adopt it. It could not be asynchronous; only synchronous instruction counts. These are all state requirements. MCPS did not of these. So no, Silver Creek and other schools could not have simply sent students home with Chromebooks. MUCH more planning would have had to go into it.

If only we had known there was a big storm coming a week ahead of time. Oh wait, we did.

You wanted MCPS to: create a plan, present it to the BoE, open it for public feedback, approve it by the BoE, submit it to the state, inform teachers of the intent to go virtual, have teachers create new lesson plans, etc, all over the course of one week?!?!

MCPS has a billion dollar plus budget. Last year it had 3 extra snow days it didn’t budget for.

Why are you writing as if it’s a shock to the system to expect paid staff members to plan for something that has repeatedly occurred and has been a problem?

DCPs for all its poverty did asynchronous learning today. Other school districts will do virtual learning tomorrow.

Why is MCPS doing nothing but making snow day videos?

What school district is doing synchronous virtual school tomorrow?

A tiny little school district you might of heard of called Baltimore county. They’ve depleted all 3 of their 3 allocated snow days and have moved to virtual.

Compare that to poorly planned MCPS which has used up three snow days despite only allocating one and where posters here are shocked that MCPS might be expected to plan anything after using up way more than it’s allocated snow days last year

Baltimore county moves to virtual Thursday Friday https://nottinghammd.com/2026/01/28/bcps-shifts-to-virtual-learning-on-thursday-friday-harford-co-schools-closed/
Looks like Anne arundel may be doing virtual tomorrow as well.
https://www.cbsnews.com/baltimore/news/maryland-schools-closed-virtual-learning-snow-day/

These are Maryland school districts doing something while MCPS concentrates its resources on snow day videos.

Great. I would like to see:

1) What percentage of kids showed up for the virtual days
2) How engaged those students who showed up for the virtual learning days were
3) What impact those virtual learning days had on their ability to achieve state-required proficiencies in math and reading

Once that data is in, and if it's compelling, then we can say that MCPS is doing something wrong by not following in these two districts' footsteps.

Also explain how the virtual school days are providing the services and supports identified in students' IEPs.

If it were virtual, at least they'd get education vs. now nothing is happening. They can do speech and reading groups online and para's can be online to support. Better than going without.

Again, "going without" isn't the alternative. Do you really not understand that MCPS has to make up the days? They can't get a waiver until they use their make-up days in the calendar, which they're not going to do.

Half days tacked onto the end of the year is essentially going without. Just because your kid doesn't like virtual doesn't mean the rest of our kids should be deprived of in-year learning.

You're more than welcome to fire up IXL for you kids if you want them to do virtual, asynchronous learning so bad. I believe all MCPS students have a login to that platform.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s no longer true that every student has a Chromebook. Some schools returned to the cart model because parents complained about 1:1.

Every kid in middle and high school has a chromebook all the time.

My kids (bcc cluster) certainly do. I read that Pyle MS moved away to having carts so kids only get Chromebooks when they need them which is not as often, but even if that’s the case, there are enough laptops for every student and central office should have had the foresight to tell schools to distribute them on Thursday and Friday considering every news outlet predicted a major storm.

You must be at Westland. Silver Creek uses the cart model.

The storm was predicted for a week. silver creek could have taken the computers off the cart and sent them home. My MS kid has been using his to do IXL and a few of his teachers posted assignments today due 2 days after school is back in session (whenever that is.)

If MCPS wanted to do virtual, they would have had to come up with a plan, presented it at the BOE, provided an opportunity to have public comment, and then the BOE would have needed to vote to adopt it. It could not be asynchronous; only synchronous instruction counts. These are all state requirements. MCPS did not of these. So no, Silver Creek and other schools could not have simply sent students home with Chromebooks. MUCH more planning would have had to go into it.

If only we had known there was a big storm coming a week ahead of time. Oh wait, we did.

You wanted MCPS to: create a plan, present it to the BoE, open it for public feedback, approve it by the BoE, submit it to the state, inform teachers of the intent to go virtual, have teachers create new lesson plans, etc, all over the course of one week?!?!

MCPS has a billion dollar plus budget. Last year it had 3 extra snow days it didn’t budget for.

Why are you writing as if it’s a shock to the system to expect paid staff members to plan for something that has repeatedly occurred and has been a problem?

DCPs for all its poverty did asynchronous learning today. Other school districts will do virtual learning tomorrow.

Why is MCPS doing nothing but making snow day videos?

What school district is doing synchronous virtual school tomorrow?

A tiny little school district you might of heard of called Baltimore county. They’ve depleted all 3 of their 3 allocated snow days and have moved to virtual.

Compare that to poorly planned MCPS which has used up three snow days despite only allocating one and where posters here are shocked that MCPS might be expected to plan anything after using up way more than it’s allocated snow days last year

Baltimore county moves to virtual Thursday Friday https://nottinghammd.com/2026/01/28/bcps-shifts-to-virtual-learning-on-thursday-friday-harford-co-schools-closed/
Looks like Anne arundel may be doing virtual tomorrow as well.
https://www.cbsnews.com/baltimore/news/maryland-schools-closed-virtual-learning-snow-day/

These are Maryland school districts doing something while MCPS concentrates its resources on snow day videos.

Perhaps if we watch Taylor's snow day video again, we'll feel better about our kids not getting 180 days of education.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s no longer true that every student has a Chromebook. Some schools returned to the cart model because parents complained about 1:1.

Every kid in middle and high school has a chromebook all the time.

My kids (bcc cluster) certainly do. I read that Pyle MS moved away to having carts so kids only get Chromebooks when they need them which is not as often, but even if that’s the case, there are enough laptops for every student and central office should have had the foresight to tell schools to distribute them on Thursday and Friday considering every news outlet predicted a major storm.

You must be at Westland. Silver Creek uses the cart model.

The storm was predicted for a week. silver creek could have taken the computers off the cart and sent them home. My MS kid has been using his to do IXL and a few of his teachers posted assignments today due 2 days after school is back in session (whenever that is.)

If MCPS wanted to do virtual, they would have had to come up with a plan, presented it at the BOE, provided an opportunity to have public comment, and then the BOE would have needed to vote to adopt it. It could not be asynchronous; only synchronous instruction counts. These are all state requirements. MCPS did not of these. So no, Silver Creek and other schools could not have simply sent students home with Chromebooks. MUCH more planning would have had to go into it.

If only we had known there was a big storm coming a week ahead of time. Oh wait, we did.

You wanted MCPS to: create a plan, present it to the BoE, open it for public feedback, approve it by the BoE, submit it to the state, inform teachers of the intent to go virtual, have teachers create new lesson plans, etc, all over the course of one week?!?!

MCPS has a billion dollar plus budget. Last year it had 3 extra snow days it didn’t budget for.

Why are you writing as if it’s a shock to the system to expect paid staff members to plan for something that has repeatedly occurred and has been a problem?

DCPs for all its poverty did asynchronous learning today. Other school districts will do virtual learning tomorrow.

Why is MCPS doing nothing but making snow day videos?

What school district is doing synchronous virtual school tomorrow?

A tiny little school district you might of heard of called Baltimore county. They’ve depleted all 3 of their 3 allocated snow days and have moved to virtual.

Compare that to poorly planned MCPS which has used up three snow days despite only allocating one and where posters here are shocked that MCPS might be expected to plan anything after using up way more than it’s allocated snow days last year

Baltimore county moves to virtual Thursday Friday https://nottinghammd.com/2026/01/28/bcps-shifts-to-virtual-learning-on-thursday-friday-harford-co-schools-closed/
Looks like Anne arundel may be doing virtual tomorrow as well.
https://www.cbsnews.com/baltimore/news/maryland-schools-closed-virtual-learning-snow-day/

These are Maryland school districts doing something while MCPS concentrates its resources on snow day videos.

Perhaps if we watch Taylor's snow day video again, we'll feel better about our kids not getting 180 days of education.

Alexandria VA did synchronous virtual learning on Wednesday too. These schools are all better prepared than MCPS, who is an outlier in this area for its inactivity.
https://www.alxnow.com/2026/01/27/just-in-acps-will-shift-to-virtual-learning-wednesday-as-schools-remain-closed/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The pro-virtual learning people just need to admit that they have anxiety about not seeing their kids doing SOMETHING that looks academic.

They don't care if the worksheets are busy work that doesn't lead to genuine learning.

They don't care if the kids' eyes glaze over from staring at the screen on Zoom for hours at a time.

Forcing their kids to perform school-like activities is more important than impact and outcome.

I disagree, obviously, but those parents should be honest that their panic is more about assuaging their own anxieties and not their kids' development and well-being.

It’s unfortunate you don’t prioritize academics. This is why kids are failing and struggling.