MCPS closed tomorrow

[Anonymous]

All of these posts remind me of the Six Degrees of Separation/Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon/Bacon’s Law. In this version, some DCUM posters challenge each other to choose an event/idea/situation and then find the shortest possible path to connect it to place blame squarely on the shoulders of MCPS and more specifically, teachers. Teachers are the Kevin Bacon in this game you play.

Everyone has an opinion. There will never be 100% agreement when it comes to MCPS decisions. We can’t control any of this, so just let it go. It is what it is and the kids will be back in school tomorrow.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Are any private schools closed today?

None that I know of. My kids in private were off to school as normal today. One is also a really old building and they had no issues.
For people saying the heating system is a big deal...you do realize it's 50 degrees. Send the kids with a jacket and bag lunch.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am glad schools are closed. I think they made the right call. I am going hang my holiday lights outside while my kiddos sleep in.

Enjoy your paid day off. But understand this isn’t how MCPS rebuilds trust with parents. That’s going to come back to bite you as more and more parents realize they can’t count on the public school system.

No one cares if you trust MCPS or not.
Feel free to leave and move to PG or Frederick or to private school.
Some of you parents are the worst. Chill out a little.
I used to live in Indiana and man, this area is so uptight.
Everyone is constantly just complaining and whining about every little thing.
Maybe look in the mirror. Rant over now.

Like the teacher that complained that she couldn’t possibly be expected to go to work if she wasn’t able to blow dry her hair this morning?

I’m from the midwest, too. There’s absolutely no way this would have closed schools where I grew up.

+1
People in the midwest where I'm from would never tolerate half this bullshit and it wouldn't happen in the first place.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Parents here have no concept of how complex this system is. They just drop their kid off at the school door and wonder why all of this is so hard.

For starters, consider that at least half the kids require a school lunch that now may or may not be available. More than half require buses that operate on a dispatching system that may or may not be available. The servers that keep the internet up — that every teacher uses all day every day and many students as well — may not be working yet. And there are something like 170,000 kids they’re trying to keep safe and productive under these conditions.

But sure, it looks easy so it must be.

Why do you think bus dispatching systems and internet servers aren't back up? Power has been back on for hours now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am glad schools are closed. I think they made the right call. I am going hang my holiday lights outside while my kiddos sleep in.

Enjoy your paid day off. But understand this isn’t how MCPS rebuilds trust with parents. That’s going to come back to bite you as more and more parents realize they can’t count on the public school system.

This is exactly the kind of parent that is driving teachers away in droves. What about entitled and demanding parents working to rebuild trust with teachers and staff?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NP here. Good ol' DCUM managing overnight to create a 7 page snarky thread mostly full of troll comments and people replying to them.

1. Please use the report button in lower right for off-topic and troll comments, rather than replying to them.

2. No the teacher's union doesn't make or influence these decisions. Nor is this decision made just to give teachers an extra day off. It's a big disruption to everyone's plans. People suggesting such a thing are trolling. Report those comments.

3. Power outages affect buildings, and it takes time to go and assess that the HVAC, internet, phones, safety (fire alarms and PA) and security systems are functioning properly. I've been in a school that had a power fluctuation in the area. The area came back up, but the building did not. After 1 hour trying to resolve, they dismissed the school early.

4. I'm surprised they actually decided to close the evening before. They could have said 2 hour delay with reassess in morning. While the message about updating in the morning may have been unclear, they won't reverse a system closure. What they were checking is to see if buildings could open for daycare and if offices could be open. Since they remained closed, that says that a lot of buildings were not ready this morning.

5. It's not just buildings. The state of the roads and traffic signals matters in order to run the buses safely. Montgomery County government (including police and fire dept.) will have a say in whether or not they want MCPS to be running buses. A closure decision is not made in isolation by MCPS.

6. It's not just buildings and roads. There are other support services that are critical to the functioning of the system. They mentioned that food services lost power and they needed to assess impact. If the main servers are down and the system has no internet, it's hard to be effective. Etc.

7. They can't just close schools in part of the system and keep other schools open. There are too many students (~15% in choice programs, not sure how many in SPED programs) that attend school other than their home school. The bus network transporting students covers a significant area.

8. Be prepared. This is the exact same conversation that is going to happen when there is some sort of iffy weather event. No need to rehash the stupid comments. Just recognize how the system works and have back-up plans in place so you can adapt.

I agree with most of this except #7. That's a dangerous argument to make. Families know which school their child attends. Each school has a principal and staff that know who attends their school should be able to communicate with parents. I hear that there are other reasons why they needed to close all the schools but this should not be one of them.

Yes, this. Especially when they have closed small groups of schools in the past due to power outages, water main breaks, etc. For future reference, I would like them to specify the threshold of how many schools need to affected by a situation like this in order for them to decide to close all 210 schools.

Nice “I want to speak to the manager NOW vibes”

Take a xanny.

It's a legitimate question. If the threshold is 25% of schools affected, it would be helpful to know that.

THIS

44 schools were affected. There are over 200 schools in MCPS.

So, maybe about 20% of the schools lost power. Why can’t the rest of the schools stay open?

Makes zero sense. And I can’t believe parents are just fine with this nonsense in such a supposedly ‘well-educated’ county.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Parents here have no concept of how complex this system is. They just drop their kid off at the school door and wonder why all of this is so hard.

For starters, consider that at least half the kids require a school lunch that now may or may not be available. More than half require buses that operate on a dispatching system that may or may not be available. The servers that keep the internet up — that every teacher uses all day every day and many students as well — may not be working yet. And there are something like 170,000 kids they’re trying to keep safe and productive under these conditions.

But sure, it looks easy so it must be.

Why do you think bus dispatching systems and internet servers aren't back up? Power has been back on for hours now.

Because at 4am, when they had to make the final call, it was not yet clear that they were all working. Which you don’t know either. All you know is that you read on some news site that “power’s back on.”

I am floored that people seem to think that when there’s a disaster at midnight somehow all of MCPS staff is up all night making sure every last thing is smooth just so they can drop off their child by 7 am.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Parents here have no concept of how complex this system is. They just drop their kid off at the school door and wonder why all of this is so hard.

For starters, consider that at least half the kids require a school lunch that now may or may not be available. More than half require buses that operate on a dispatching system that may or may not be available. The servers that keep the internet up — that every teacher uses all day every day and many students as well — may not be working yet. And there are something like 170,000 kids they’re trying to keep safe and productive under these conditions.

But sure, it looks easy so it must be.

Why do you think bus dispatching systems and internet servers aren't back up? Power has been back on for hours now.

Because at 4am, when they had to make the final call, it was not yet clear that they were all working. Which you don’t know either. All you know is that you read on some news site that “power’s back on.”

I am floored that people seem to think that when there’s a disaster at midnight somehow all of MCPS staff is up all night making sure every last thing is smooth just so they can drop off their child by 7 am.

I am floored that you continue to make excuses. Internet servers don't take hours to come back on. It's not 1980.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NP here. Good ol' DCUM managing overnight to create a 7 page snarky thread mostly full of troll comments and people replying to them.

1. Please use the report button in lower right for off-topic and troll comments, rather than replying to them.

2. No the teacher's union doesn't make or influence these decisions. Nor is this decision made just to give teachers an extra day off. It's a big disruption to everyone's plans. People suggesting such a thing are trolling. Report those comments.

3. Power outages affect buildings, and it takes time to go and assess that the HVAC, internet, phones, safety (fire alarms and PA) and security systems are functioning properly. I've been in a school that had a power fluctuation in the area. The area came back up, but the building did not. After 1 hour trying to resolve, they dismissed the school early.

4. I'm surprised they actually decided to close the evening before. They could have said 2 hour delay with reassess in morning. While the message about updating in the morning may have been unclear, they won't reverse a system closure. What they were checking is to see if buildings could open for daycare and if offices could be open. Since they remained closed, that says that a lot of buildings were not ready this morning.

5. It's not just buildings. The state of the roads and traffic signals matters in order to run the buses safely. Montgomery County government (including police and fire dept.) will have a say in whether or not they want MCPS to be running buses. A closure decision is not made in isolation by MCPS.

6. It's not just buildings and roads. There are other support services that are critical to the functioning of the system. They mentioned that food services lost power and they needed to assess impact. If the main servers are down and the system has no internet, it's hard to be effective. Etc.

7. They can't just close schools in part of the system and keep other schools open. There are too many students (~15% in choice programs, not sure how many in SPED programs) that attend school other than their home school. The bus network transporting students covers a significant area.

8. Be prepared. This is the exact same conversation that is going to happen when there is some sort of iffy weather event. No need to rehash the stupid comments. Just recognize how the system works and have back-up plans in place so you can adapt.

I agree with most of this except #7. That's a dangerous argument to make. Families know which school their child attends. Each school has a principal and staff that know who attends their school should be able to communicate with parents. I hear that there are other reasons why they needed to close all the schools but this should not be one of them.

Yes, this. Especially when they have closed small groups of schools in the past due to power outages, water main breaks, etc. For future reference, I would like them to specify the threshold of how many schools need to affected by a situation like this in order for them to decide to close all 210 schools.

Nice “I want to speak to the manager NOW vibes”

Take a xanny.

It's a legitimate question. If the threshold is 25% of schools affected, it would be helpful to know that.

THIS

44 schools were affected. There are over 200 schools in MCPS.

So, maybe about 20% of the schools lost power. Why can’t the rest of the schools stay open?

Makes zero sense. And I can’t believe parents are just fine with this nonsense in such a supposedly ‘well-educated’ county.

Do you think each school is its own independent entity? Literally everything is controlled centrally, even heating systems and internet, not to mention buses and lunches.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Parents here have no concept of how complex this system is. They just drop their kid off at the school door and wonder why all of this is so hard.

For starters, consider that at least half the kids require a school lunch that now may or may not be available. More than half require buses that operate on a dispatching system that may or may not be available. The servers that keep the internet up — that every teacher uses all day every day and many students as well — may not be working yet. And there are something like 170,000 kids they’re trying to keep safe and productive under these conditions.

But sure, it looks easy so it must be.

Why do you think bus dispatching systems and internet servers aren't back up? Power has been back on for hours now.

Because at 4am, when they had to make the final call, it was not yet clear that they were all working. Which you don’t know either. All you know is that you read on some news site that “power’s back on.”

I am floored that people seem to think that when there’s a disaster at midnight somehow all of MCPS staff is up all night making sure every last thing is smooth just so they can drop off their child by 7 am.

A power outage is not a "disaster". If MCPS can't deal with a power outage, we are really screwed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Parents here have no concept of how complex this system is. They just drop their kid off at the school door and wonder why all of this is so hard.

For starters, consider that at least half the kids require a school lunch that now may or may not be available. More than half require buses that operate on a dispatching system that may or may not be available. The servers that keep the internet up — that every teacher uses all day every day and many students as well — may not be working yet. And there are something like 170,000 kids they’re trying to keep safe and productive under these conditions.

But sure, it looks easy so it must be.

Why do you think bus dispatching systems and internet servers aren't back up? Power has been back on for hours now.

Because at 4am, when they had to make the final call, it was not yet clear that they were all working. Which you don’t know either. All you know is that you read on some news site that “power’s back on.”

I am floored that people seem to think that when there’s a disaster at midnight somehow all of MCPS staff is up all night making sure every last thing is smooth just so they can drop off their child by 7 am.

It’s not a “disaster” it’s a power outage. Yesterday.

This isn’t the 19th century. Things turn back on and then they work.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Parents here have no concept of how complex this system is. They just drop their kid off at the school door and wonder why all of this is so hard.

For starters, consider that at least half the kids require a school lunch that now may or may not be available. More than half require buses that operate on a dispatching system that may or may not be available. The servers that keep the internet up — that every teacher uses all day every day and many students as well — may not be working yet. And there are something like 170,000 kids they’re trying to keep safe and productive under these conditions.

But sure, it looks easy so it must be.

Why do you think bus dispatching systems and internet servers aren't back up? Power has been back on for hours now.

Because at 4am, when they had to make the final call, it was not yet clear that they were all working. Which you don’t know either. All you know is that you read on some news site that “power’s back on.”

I am floored that people seem to think that when there’s a disaster at midnight somehow all of MCPS staff is up all night making sure every last thing is smooth just so they can drop off their child by 7 am.

I am floored that you continue to make excuses. Internet servers don't take hours to come back on. It's not 1980.

You must be right. There’s just one little switch somewhere and one guy was just too lazy to flip it. That must be it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am glad schools are closed. I think they made the right call. I am going hang my holiday lights outside while my kiddos sleep in.

Enjoy your paid day off. But understand this isn’t how MCPS rebuilds trust with parents. That’s going to come back to bite you as more and more parents realize they can’t count on the public school system.

This is exactly the kind of parent that is driving teachers away in droves. What about entitled and demanding parents working to rebuild trust with teachers and staff?

Being able to work from home for over a year, at the expense kids’ education, wasn’t enough for them?

I’m retyping really hard to follow your logic following a freak accident power incident. Are you StILL trying to assign blame to the closure?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NP here. Good ol' DCUM managing overnight to create a 7 page snarky thread mostly full of troll comments and people replying to them.

1. Please use the report button in lower right for off-topic and troll comments, rather than replying to them.

2. No the teacher's union doesn't make or influence these decisions. Nor is this decision made just to give teachers an extra day off. It's a big disruption to everyone's plans. People suggesting such a thing are trolling. Report those comments.

3. Power outages affect buildings, and it takes time to go and assess that the HVAC, internet, phones, safety (fire alarms and PA) and security systems are functioning properly. I've been in a school that had a power fluctuation in the area. The area came back up, but the building did not. After 1 hour trying to resolve, they dismissed the school early.

4. I'm surprised they actually decided to close the evening before. They could have said 2 hour delay with reassess in morning. While the message about updating in the morning may have been unclear, they won't reverse a system closure. What they were checking is to see if buildings could open for daycare and if offices could be open. Since they remained closed, that says that a lot of buildings were not ready this morning.

5. It's not just buildings. The state of the roads and traffic signals matters in order to run the buses safely. Montgomery County government (including police and fire dept.) will have a say in whether or not they want MCPS to be running buses. A closure decision is not made in isolation by MCPS.

6. It's not just buildings and roads. There are other support services that are critical to the functioning of the system. They mentioned that food services lost power and they needed to assess impact. If the main servers are down and the system has no internet, it's hard to be effective. Etc.

7. They can't just close schools in part of the system and keep other schools open. There are too many students (~15% in choice programs, not sure how many in SPED programs) that attend school other than their home school. The bus network transporting students covers a significant area.

8. Be prepared. This is the exact same conversation that is going to happen when there is some sort of iffy weather event. No need to rehash the stupid comments. Just recognize how the system works and have back-up plans in place so you can adapt.

I agree with most of this except #7. That's a dangerous argument to make. Families know which school their child attends. Each school has a principal and staff that know who attends their school should be able to communicate with parents. I hear that there are other reasons why they needed to close all the schools but this should not be one of them.

Yes, this. Especially when they have closed small groups of schools in the past due to power outages, water main breaks, etc. For future reference, I would like them to specify the threshold of how many schools need to affected by a situation like this in order for them to decide to close all 210 schools.

Nice “I want to speak to the manager NOW vibes”

Take a xanny.

It's a legitimate question. If the threshold is 25% of schools affected, it would be helpful to know that.

THIS

44 schools were affected. There are over 200 schools in MCPS.

So, maybe about 20% of the schools lost power. Why can’t the rest of the schools stay open?

Makes zero sense. And I can’t believe parents are just fine with this nonsense in such a supposedly ‘well-educated’ county.

Do you think each school is its own independent entity? Literally everything is controlled centrally, even heating systems and internet, not to mention buses and lunches.

Why have previous power outages only shut down the affected schools?

[Anonymous]

But power back on at 4am. Our kids have been out of school for two years, but I'm sure the state will excuse make-up days. Our kids need to be in school. Figure it out MCPS.