Cancel Virtual Academy

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Every county, or at least he bigger ones have VA. Googling to see it, even Baltimore City has one. At some point, if you have 10-40K students in VA, you'd have to create a entire new school system, vs. separate schools like each county did now. If that poster wants to go through the state, fine, however they can argue all they want but MCPS has been clear that they are committed to keeping VA.

Doing it through the state makes no sense except if you mandate each county use the same exact curriculum so kids can move in and out of VA to in person easily. Although the state taking over the curriculum may not be a bad thing if they brought textbooks back.

I get why it there might be substantial value to making it easy to go to/from virtual during the pandemic. But we're nearing the end-game on COVID, with the 5-11yo vaccines rolling out. Of the kids whose parents choose to keep them in virtual next fall, I think it is safe to assume *most* will never return to their old in-person schools. So there's very little benefit to keeping the virtual curriculum aligned with the physical schools that happen to be geographically close to the students.

It is striking how little anyone here seems to contemplate the prospect of a vaccine-escaping variant.

The vaccines target the spike protein. The spike protein is the part that engages with the cell. If the spike protein mutates far enough to escape the vaccines, it will no longer engage with the cell.

Naturally acquired immunity, though, can target any part of the virus, and those parts of the virus can mutate away. This is why vaccine acquired immunity is better than infection-acquired.

I would bet money that the COVID spike protein turns out to be more creative than this makes it out to be.

More to the point, I wouldn’t bet our school system that it’s going to happen only the way you suggest and that we’re not going to be right back in March 2020 a lot faster than any of us want to be.

Good luck to all.

This post perfectly illustrates my point. For some people the pandemic will never end, and they'll never consider in-person schools safe. To someone like the pp, terrified of breakthrough infections, hesitant to get vaccine boosters, and convinced the other shoe is going to drop, there's plausible path back to in-person learning. And that's her right. But let's structure virtual learning around the false belief that students in these families are coming back. We'll need a large number of students return next fall after getting vaccination. But the ones that are kept home after that are going to stay home for a long, long time. And when/if they return to in-person school, I suspect will end up in private schools rather than public schools. Only a small percentage will end up ever stepping foot in an MCPS school again.

This post also perfectly illustrates that you don't understand how to hold two contradictory ideas in one's head at the same time. My child is in-person school in MCPS. Both of his parents have received boosters.

I still find it...surprising? perplexing? amusing? that people who have lived through the same things I've lived through in the last two years are dead-set on the idea that they can predict what is coming next. We can't. Certainly not enough to move to shut down the thing we desperately needed on the front end of this and didn't have until Fall 2021. Keep the Virtual Academy open--we all may need back into it before this is really over (as opposed to "over" on the internet).

What do you mean by “over”? There is no “over”- COVID is never going away. Perhaps it will end up like the flu, with different variants popping up from time to time, some more serious than others. Life moves on, though. It is ridiculous to think we’re going to keep up COVID mitigations forever.

Keeping virtual options for kids/families is fine, as I’ve repeatedly said in this thread. But you seem to have unrealistic goals for COVID. You should work on acceptance. Life is filled with risks. With vaccines, the known and unknown risks of COVID blend into the background noise. That’s not to say the risk is zero, or that something bad won’t come along a month, year or decade from now. But that’s life. I can’t imagine the sheltered life someone would have had to live to not understand that.

Why do you care if someone makes different life choices than you, especially during a health pandemic? Why is the only acceptable way, your way? Why do we have to agree to risk getting covid because you tell us we do?

You decide what risks you want to take for your family and we'll decide for us. Getting covid is not something our family wants to risk. But, I am fortunate to have kids who do well in virtual, they can count on us to support them and are very understanding of health issues and the impact of covid should one of us get it. We have really enjoyed the extra time together.

You have in person. So, how is this even a debate as it has zero impact on you? Actually, it has a positive impact as it reduces the number of in person kids at your kids school, which makes it safer for them.

And as I’ve said again and again, I think the state should provide a permanent and sustainable virtual learning option for all students in Maryland, including your kids. I’m not trying to force your kids, or any others, back into schools.

DP who has their kids in virtual this year and I agree- anyone who thinks the MCPS will keep VA beyond this year is delusional. At the state level there could be more course offerings for upper grades too. I’ve been writing MSDE and I’d recommend anyone who wants virtual beyond this year to do the same.

They already announced it’s here to stay. You are delusional to think they will do it better at the state level. The state offers two programs. Private pay. They are basically homeschooling programs. You can use them if you’d like.

Can you provide a link to the announcement please? And how it would work considering enrollment would likely be lower next year? TIA!

FWIW, I have family with direct experience with state-administered programs (not private pay) in other states. In one case it was for a child undergoing cancer treatment and they were grateful to have the option. You're oddly dismissive of a state run program but it can work and offer a consistent option for kids all over the state.

Go to the mcps website and apply. There is a waitlist.

Each county is responsible for their own programming. If you want it through the state there are two approved private programs you can use.

[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:Every county, or at least he bigger ones have VA. Googling to see it, even Baltimore City has one. At some point, if you have 10-40K students in VA, you'd have to create a entire new school system, vs. separate schools like each county did now. If that poster wants to go through the state, fine, however they can argue all they want but MCPS has been clear that they are committed to keeping VA.

Doing it through the state makes no sense except if you mandate each county use the same exact curriculum so kids can move in and out of VA to in person easily. Although the state taking over the curriculum may not be a bad thing if they brought textbooks back.

I get why it there might be substantial value to making it easy to go to/from virtual during the pandemic. But we're nearing the end-game on COVID, with the 5-11yo vaccines rolling out. Of the kids whose parents choose to keep them in virtual next fall, I think it is safe to assume *most* will never return to their old in-person schools. So there's very little benefit to keeping the virtual curriculum aligned with the physical schools that happen to be geographically close to the students.

It is striking how little anyone here seems to contemplate the prospect of a vaccine-escaping variant.

The vaccines target the spike protein. The spike protein is the part that engages with the cell. If the spike protein mutates far enough to escape the vaccines, it will no longer engage with the cell.

Naturally acquired immunity, though, can target any part of the virus, and those parts of the virus can mutate away. This is why vaccine acquired immunity is better than infection-acquired.

I would bet money that the COVID spike protein turns out to be more creative than this makes it out to be.

More to the point, I wouldn’t bet our school system that it’s going to happen only the way you suggest and that we’re not going to be right back in March 2020 a lot faster than any of us want to be.

Good luck to all.

This post perfectly illustrates my point. For some people the pandemic will never end, and they'll never consider in-person schools safe. To someone like the pp, terrified of breakthrough infections, hesitant to get vaccine boosters, and convinced the other shoe is going to drop, there's plausible path back to in-person learning. And that's her right. But let's structure virtual learning around the false belief that students in these families are coming back. We'll need a large number of students return next fall after getting vaccination. But the ones that are kept home after that are going to stay home for a long, long time. And when/if they return to in-person school, I suspect will end up in private schools rather than public schools. Only a small percentage will end up ever stepping foot in an MCPS school again.

This post also perfectly illustrates that you don't understand how to hold two contradictory ideas in one's head at the same time. My child is in-person school in MCPS. Both of his parents have received boosters.

I still find it...surprising? perplexing? amusing? that people who have lived through the same things I've lived through in the last two years are dead-set on the idea that they can predict what is coming next. We can't. Certainly not enough to move to shut down the thing we desperately needed on the front end of this and didn't have until Fall 2021. Keep the Virtual Academy open--we all may need back into it before this is really over (as opposed to "over" on the internet).

What do you mean by “over”? There is no “over”- COVID is never going away. Perhaps it will end up like the flu, with different variants popping up from time to time, some more serious than others. Life moves on, though. It is ridiculous to think we’re going to keep up COVID mitigations forever.

Keeping virtual options for kids/families is fine, as I’ve repeatedly said in this thread. But you seem to have unrealistic goals for COVID. You should work on acceptance. Life is filled with risks. With vaccines, the known and unknown risks of COVID blend into the background noise. That’s not to say the risk is zero, or that something bad won’t come along a month, year or decade from now. But that’s life. I can’t imagine the sheltered life someone would have had to live to not understand that.

Why do you care if someone makes different life choices than you, especially during a health pandemic? Why is the only acceptable way, your way? Why do we have to agree to risk getting covid because you tell us we do?

You decide what risks you want to take for your family and we'll decide for us. Getting covid is not something our family wants to risk. But, I am fortunate to have kids who do well in virtual, they can count on us to support them and are very understanding of health issues and the impact of covid should one of us get it. We have really enjoyed the extra time together.

You have in person. So, how is this even a debate as it has zero impact on you? Actually, it has a positive impact as it reduces the number of in person kids at your kids school, which makes it safer for them.

And as I’ve said again and again, I think the state should provide a permanent and sustainable virtual learning option for all students in Maryland, including your kids. I’m not trying to force your kids, or any others, back into schools.

DP who has their kids in virtual this year and I agree- anyone who thinks the MCPS will keep VA beyond this year is delusional. At the state level there could be more course offerings for upper grades too. I’ve been writing MSDE and I’d recommend anyone who wants virtual beyond this year to do the same.

They already announced it’s here to stay. You are delusional to think they will do it better at the state level. The state offers two programs. Private pay. They are basically homeschooling programs. You can use them if you’d like.

Can you provide a link to the announcement please? And how it would work considering enrollment would likely be lower next year? TIA!

FWIW, I have family with direct experience with state-administered programs (not private pay) in other states. In one case it was for a child undergoing cancer treatment and they were grateful to have the option. You're oddly dismissive of a state run program but it can work and offer a consistent option for kids all over the state.

Go to the mcps website and apply. There is a waitlist.

Each county is responsible for their own programming. If you want it through the state there are two approved private programs you can use.

Which other counties provide virtual options? Sadly it seems that outside of MCPS and PG there are no public virtual options, right? Some of us actually care about kids state wide.

[Anonymous]

I hope VA stays because class sizes are pretty small- my kids get much more personalized attention in all their classes, particularly the advanced ones. A much better experience than the classes with 30+ students at the school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I hope VA stays because class sizes are pretty small- my kids get much more personalized attention in all their classes, particularly the advanced ones. A much better experience than the classes with 30+ students at the school.

That doesn't sound economically sustainable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I hope VA stays because class sizes are pretty small- my kids get much more personalized attention in all their classes, particularly the advanced ones. A much better experience than the classes with 30+ students at the school.

That doesn't sound economically sustainable.

They have funding for many years to come.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I hope VA stays because class sizes are pretty small- my kids get much more personalized attention in all their classes, particularly the advanced ones. A much better experience than the classes with 30+ students at the school.

That doesn't sound economically sustainable.

They have funding for many years to come.

It also sounds inequitable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I hope VA stays because class sizes are pretty small- my kids get much more personalized attention in all their classes, particularly the advanced ones. A much better experience than the classes with 30+ students at the school.

That doesn't sound economically sustainable.

They have funding for many years to come.

It also sounds inequitable.

NP. The biggest problem I have with virtual academy is how inequitable it is. It's a program for the rich and doesn't reflect community demographics.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I hope VA stays because class sizes are pretty small- my kids get much more personalized attention in all their classes, particularly the advanced ones. A much better experience than the classes with 30+ students at the school.

That doesn't sound economically sustainable.

They have funding for many years to come.

Many years? Not really. They're using COVID relief funds that need to be spent by December 2024. That also means that MCPS is spending money on virtual academy that could otherwise be spent on things like ventilation improvements, or efforts to reduce the educational losses during the extended school closures.

I'm not saying a virtual option isn't a worthy area to spend money on. But we should be as efficient as possible when running these programs so that we can direct funds appropriately to have the greatest impact.

Given that MSDE would need additional funding themselves to establish a state-level virtual option, I don't see it happening for 2022-2023. But we should try to get in place for 2023-2024.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I hope VA stays because class sizes are pretty small- my kids get much more personalized attention in all their classes, particularly the advanced ones. A much better experience than the classes with 30+ students at the school.

That doesn't sound economically sustainable.

They have funding for many years to come.

Where are you getting this information? The district puts together an at-large operating budget each year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I hope VA stays because class sizes are pretty small- my kids get much more personalized attention in all their classes, particularly the advanced ones. A much better experience than the classes with 30+ students at the school.

That doesn't sound economically sustainable.

They have funding for many years to come.

Where are you getting this information? The district puts together an at-large operating budget each year.

From a BOE member.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I hope VA stays because class sizes are pretty small- my kids get much more personalized attention in all their classes, particularly the advanced ones. A much better experience than the classes with 30+ students at the school.

That doesn't sound economically sustainable.

They have funding for many years to come.

It also sounds inequitable.

NP. The biggest problem I have with virtual academy is how inequitable it is. It's a program for the rich and doesn't reflect community demographics.

Anyone can sign up, sorry you missed the deadline.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I hope VA stays because class sizes are pretty small- my kids get much more personalized attention in all their classes, particularly the advanced ones. A much better experience than the classes with 30+ students at the school.

That doesn't sound economically sustainable.

They have funding for many years to come.

It also sounds inequitable.

NP. The biggest problem I have with virtual academy is how inequitable it is. It's a program for the rich and doesn't reflect community demographics.

Anyone can sign up, sorry you missed the deadline.

I'm not the PP, but it doesn't matter whether the PP wanted to sign up for it. If VA students have smaller classes, that is an advantage to VA participants that is not given to other students. VA requires parental availability and involvement for student success, making it a more attractive choice for families with means and flexible work schedules. It has the potential to be another way for higher-income families to gain advantages over other populations.

Again, I'm not saying there isn't a role for online learning for families who want it. However, I'm questioning whether a virtual option connected with home schools is equitable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I hope VA stays because class sizes are pretty small- my kids get much more personalized attention in all their classes, particularly the advanced ones. A much better experience than the classes with 30+ students at the school.

That doesn't sound economically sustainable.

They have funding for many years to come.

It also sounds inequitable.

NP. The biggest problem I have with virtual academy is how inequitable it is. It's a program for the rich and doesn't reflect community demographics.

Anyone can sign up, sorry you missed the deadline.

Are you trying to demonstrate why this program should be dismantled?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I hope VA stays because class sizes are pretty small- my kids get much more personalized attention in all their classes, particularly the advanced ones. A much better experience than the classes with 30+ students at the school.

That doesn't sound economically sustainable.

They have funding for many years to come.

Where are you getting this information? The district puts together an at-large operating budget each year.

From a BOE member.

That holds about as much weight as a fart in the wind. They change priorities all the time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

I'm not the PP, but it doesn't matter whether the PP wanted to sign up for it. If VA students have smaller classes, that is an advantage to VA participants that is not given to other students. VA requires parental availability and involvement for student success, making it a more attractive choice for families with means and flexible work schedules. It has the potential to be another way for higher-income families to gain advantages over other populations.

Again, I'm not saying there isn't a role for online learning for families who want it. However, I'm questioning whether a virtual option connected with home schools is equitable.

Virtual school is inequitable because it's worse than school school. Also, virtual school is inequitable because it's better than school school.