How to fight this new anti-childcare winter weather approach?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Help me understand. What is the typical schedule for morning care?

If that morning staff is normally scheduled to be off by 9 AM then I can understand canceling care because I’m assuming most of those people or many of those people have other jobs they must get to. Nobody can live off a salary that only pays for 2 to 3 hours a day.

If they operate on a normal schedule, they would work until 9 AM and then you have staff we need to go to their second job which would mean the student to teacher ratio would be off.

If you operate on a two hour delay again many of the staff would not be able to work because they have other job commitments.

That's a theoretical possibility, but before recently, they did exactly that, and it was fine. Beforecare opened at the usual time and there was staff there until school started, KAH at least used to open on days when school was cancelled for weather, and they had no problem getting staff for the whole day. If that's the justification, it's obviously not what's happening in reality. There's no reason to cancel because you can imagine a problem that we know isn't real from experience.

Me again. Who or what kind of people work at before and after care? Seniors? People who have wide open schedules for the day and are OK living on just a couple hours salary? I keep thinking it’s a staffing issue that was finally addressed. I think about ratios, and either paying staff or finding enough staff to work.

There must be a real concrete reason to cancel childcare and not just make it a willy-nilly decision. I’m sure childcare businesses were consulted.

Well KAH does not seem to think so. Here is the text of the message they sent this morning:

Dear Parents,



I am so sorry for the confusion about our opening time this morning. For YEARS we could open when Admin. Offices opened.



We just heard from the county that we CANNOT open this morning. I am so sorry for the inconvenience. Drive Safely and have a Great Day!



Bob

The Big Cheese

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Help me understand. What is the typical schedule for morning care?

If that morning staff is normally scheduled to be off by 9 AM then I can understand canceling care because I’m assuming most of those people or many of those people have other jobs they must get to. Nobody can live off a salary that only pays for 2 to 3 hours a day.

If they operate on a normal schedule, they would work until 9 AM and then you have staff we need to go to their second job which would mean the student to teacher ratio would be off.

If you operate on a two hour delay again many of the staff would not be able to work because they have other job commitments.

That's a theoretical possibility, but before recently, they did exactly that, and it was fine. Beforecare opened at the usual time and there was staff there until school started, KAH at least used to open on days when school was cancelled for weather, and they had no problem getting staff for the whole day. If that's the justification, it's obviously not what's happening in reality. There's no reason to cancel because you can imagine a problem that we know isn't real from experience.

Me again. Who or what kind of people work at before and after care? Seniors? People who have wide open schedules for the day and are OK living on just a couple hours salary? I keep thinking it’s a staffing issue that was finally addressed. I think about ratios, and either paying staff or finding enough staff to work.

There must be a real concrete reason to cancel childcare and not just make it a willy-nilly decision. I’m sure childcare businesses were consulted.

It's mostly people in their early 20s. A lot of them live with their parents, a lot of them have day jobs at the school, some are in college. I think their schedules are generally pretty open. If you're worried about their pay MCPS just took a way several hours of pay from them.

There's no evidence that the companies were consulted, whatever you might be "sure" of. KAH has consistently, since last year, been acting like a business that isn't receiving consistent clear communications about what's happening, much less being consulted. This morning they initially said they were open, which also happened last February. If they're being consulted, they're doing a great job hiding it, and they're generally much clearer about communcation than MCPS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Help me understand. What is the typical schedule for morning care?

If that morning staff is normally scheduled to be off by 9 AM then I can understand canceling care because I’m assuming most of those people or many of those people have other jobs they must get to. Nobody can live off a salary that only pays for 2 to 3 hours a day.

If they operate on a normal schedule, they would work until 9 AM and then you have staff we need to go to their second job which would mean the student to teacher ratio would be off.

If you operate on a two hour delay again many of the staff would not be able to work because they have other job commitments.

That's a theoretical possibility, but before recently, they did exactly that, and it was fine. Beforecare opened at the usual time and there was staff there until school started, KAH at least used to open on days when school was cancelled for weather, and they had no problem getting staff for the whole day. If that's the justification, it's obviously not what's happening in reality. There's no reason to cancel because you can imagine a problem that we know isn't real from experience.

Me again. Who or what kind of people work at before and after care? Seniors? People who have wide open schedules for the day and are OK living on just a couple hours salary? I keep thinking it’s a staffing issue that was finally addressed. I think about ratios, and either paying staff or finding enough staff to work.

There must be a real concrete reason to cancel childcare and not just make it a willy-nilly decision. I’m sure childcare businesses were consulted.

Child care businesses were not consulted, and hate this new policy. Why would you be sure they have been consulted? Have you gotten MCPS confused with some other organization which actually gathers and considers stakeholder input? Because they definitely don't.

+100,000

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would suggest e-mailing as many folks as possible on this if you are upset-- both high-level and low.

High-level-- Taylor, Board of Ed, County Council (Mink, Jawando, Albornoz-- who are on the Ed committee- as well as your own councilmember and anyone you have a relationship with.)

Lower-level-- Adnan Mamoon, Chief of District Operations ([e-mail]); Cat Malchodi, executive director of the Office of District Operations ([e-mail]); Andrea Swiatocha, deputy chief of the Division of Facilities Management ([e-mail]); William Polman, childcare director at Community Use of Public Facilities at the county ([e-mail])

Please add any other names and e-mail addresses you can think of!

Essie McGuire is Taylor’s Chief of Staff and with him everywhere he goes and speaks for him at the County Council. She is behind all of these decisions.

Good call. So: [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], Councilmember.Jawando
@montgomerycountymd.gov, [e-mail]

Anyone get any emails back on this yet?

[Anonymous]

Not only does MCPS not consult stakeholders but they also blame their decisions on the stakeholders they didn't consult. There are some horrible, horrible people in CO

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP does not comprehend that workers at childcare centers exist and go home at night.

This. Should they sleep at work the night before?

Oh shut up and stop with your red herrings. Absolutely no one is talking about forcing child care providers to work during unsafe weather. We are just saying that MCPS should go back to the old policy and allow child care providers to make their own choices on whether or not to open if they know their school and their staff's home areas/routes to work are safe (which they know much better than central office does.) And especially not to decide that it's safe for high schools and full-day child care to open at 9am on a day like today but somehow not safe for beforecares to open at 9am.

So long as MCPS is the party that is liable for accidents that occur on the property due to unsafe conditions, MCPS is the appropriate party to decide whether they can have the property ready to be safely occupied for before care programs. The programs are only responsible for the safety of the care they provide.

[Anonymous]

Okay, I am now finally able to start work 4 hours late (I'm paid hourly, so a bunch of money down the drain, not to mention the stress of having to hit the same deadlines with less time to do it in) so I am stepping out of this thread for awhile. MCPS and random mean posters, I hope you're happy. And I really hope that no parents are losing their jobs today after having to call off last-minute for a shift tha they couldn't make and their bosses won't accept the excuse that their child care had to close because of rain...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Wow. 10 pages and not even noon. Childcare during inclement weather school closings has been an issue for three decades and probably longer.

-Hire a babysitter.
-Get a parent who stays home and has kids who attend same school to take care of your kid for the two+ hours, pay them. Or propose a swap and you look after their kid some other time / a playdate.
-Take a sick leave from work.
-Write to state elected persons to try to break down the 'largest district in Maryland' into Northern and southern, or western and eastern regions.

NP. People always post suggestions like these (including hiring a high school student to watch your kids), but they’re unrealistic. I’ve always been a SAHM and my kids are in high school now. None of us is going to provide childcare for a two hour delay. We’re sleeping in an extra 2 hours. Every time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP does not comprehend that workers at childcare centers exist and go home at night.

This. Should they sleep at work the night before?

Oh shut up and stop with your red herrings. Absolutely no one is talking about forcing child care providers to work during unsafe weather. We are just saying that MCPS should go back to the old policy and allow child care providers to make their own choices on whether or not to open if they know their school and their staff's home areas/routes to work are safe (which they know much better than central office does.) And especially not to decide that it's safe for high schools and full-day child care to open at 9am on a day like today but somehow not safe for beforecares to open at 9am.

So long as MCPS is the party that is liable for accidents that occur on the property due to unsafe conditions, MCPS is the appropriate party to decide whether they can have the property ready to be safely occupied for before care programs. The programs are only responsible for the safety of the care they provide. [/quote
DP

They let the providers open during two hour delays FOR YEARS. Now they have changed the policy but didn't tell anyone ahead of time or explain why. High schools opened today before child care providers could open. How are teachers with elementary school children supposed to show up to work? How does this make any sense?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP does not comprehend that workers at childcare centers exist and go home at night.

This. Should they sleep at work the night before?

Oh shut up and stop with your red herrings. Absolutely no one is talking about forcing child care providers to work during unsafe weather. We are just saying that MCPS should go back to the old policy and allow child care providers to make their own choices on whether or not to open if they know their school and their staff's home areas/routes to work are safe (which they know much better than central office does.) And especially not to decide that it's safe for high schools and full-day child care to open at 9am on a day like today but somehow not safe for beforecares to open at 9am.

So long as MCPS is the party that is liable for accidents that occur on the property due to unsafe conditions, MCPS is the appropriate party to decide whether they can have the property ready to be safely occupied for before care programs. The programs are only responsible for the safety of the care they provide.

They let the providers open during two hour delays FOR YEARS. Now they have changed the policy but didn't tell anyone ahead of time or explain why. High schools opened today before child care providers could open. How are teachers with elementary school children supposed to show up to work? How does this make any sense except to punish working women and their workplaces?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The district is sort of already being broken down into 6 regions, as proposed. If that passes, can schools in Silver Spring open even if there's an unplowed road in Damascus?

The 6 regions are just for the purpose of determining which special programs students are eligible to attend. Right now, each high school cluster is part of MCPS. These regions are just super-clusters.

Yes, but with the end of county-wide magnet programs, it would be possible for each region to manage their own bus schedule.

Will each region operate their buses independently? What about special ed programs that serve multiple regions?

[Anonymous]

How come in the email MCPS sent me yesterday at 1:46pm they have an infographic describing code yellow. Within that infographic code yellow details said school opens 2 hrs late, offices open on time and childcare providers may operate? This is how it always was in the past, and this is literally the expectation they communicated yesterday afternoon.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The district is sort of already being broken down into 6 regions, as proposed. If that passes, can schools in Silver Spring open even if there's an unplowed road in Damascus?

The 6 regions are just for the purpose of determining which special programs students are eligible to attend. Right now, each high school cluster is part of MCPS. These regions are just super-clusters.

Yes, but with the end of county-wide magnet programs, it would be possible for each region to manage their own bus schedule.

Will each region operate their buses independently? What about special ed programs that serve multiple regions?

The special schools would probably have to close if any of the other schools were closed. But perhaps schools in Regions 1-5 could open even if schools in Region 6 have to close. I'm trying to make lemonade out of the regional proposal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How come in the email MCPS sent me yesterday at 1:46pm they have an infographic describing code yellow. Within that infographic code yellow details said school opens 2 hrs late, offices open on time and childcare providers may operate? This is how it always was in the past, and this is literally the expectation they communicated yesterday afternoon.

They hate working women including their own employees and by extension their own schools

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The district is sort of already being broken down into 6 regions, as proposed. If that passes, can schools in Silver Spring open even if there's an unplowed road in Damascus?

The 6 regions are just for the purpose of determining which special programs students are eligible to attend. Right now, each high school cluster is part of MCPS. These regions are just super-clusters.

Yes, but with the end of county-wide magnet programs, it would be possible for each region to manage their own bus schedule.

Will each region operate their buses independently? What about special ed programs that serve multiple regions?

The special schools would probably have to close if any of the other schools were closed. But perhaps schools in Regions 1-5 could open even if schools in Region 6 have to close. I'm trying to make lemonade out of the regional proposal.

They can’t do this because they need everyone to get to 180 days on the same days, and staff don’t necessarily live in the regions.