Virtual Learning - Why Not MCPS?

[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.

This doesn’t show it’s a failure and if in person is so great why are test scores and grades bad?

[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: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/

But MCPS can't! Because it hasn't planned for it! Because it requires Board consultation! Because it didn't distribute Chromebooks before the storm! Because it didn't distribute educational packets before the storm! Because kids have IEPs! Because teachers haven't planned!

News flash: many other counties can.

ACPS will shift to virtual learning Wednesday as schools remain closed
Tomorrow (Wednesday) will be a virtual workday for students and teachers at Alexandria City Public Schools.

ACPS facilities will remain closed for all activities for a third consecutive day due to inclement weather, Superintendent Melanie Kay-Wyatt announced this afternoon. Students, teachers and staff will instead move to synchronous virtual learning plans.

“Class times will include synchronous instruction via Zoom, which means live virtual instruction with teachers, as well as independent work,” Kay-Wyatt wrote. “Teachers will also provide virtual office hours. Schools will communicate the daily bell schedule for the school day.”

ACPS’ nutrition services plan to distribute lunches free of charge to students under 18 at the following locations from 10:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. tomorrow:

Families are encouraged to check students’ Canvas or Clever accounts “no later than 8 a.m.” for specifics about scheduling. Students’ attendance will be taken through these accounts.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

I prioritize GENUINE and EFFECTIVE instruction and learning. Which data thus far says happens best with in-person, face-to-face instruction.

Synthetic, virtual “learning” is not real education. It’s a crude imitation that yields weak academic results at best, and many emotional and developmental harms at worst.

[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.

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/

But MCPS can't! Because it hasn't planned for it! Because it requires Board consultation! Because it didn't distribute Chromebooks before the storm! Because it didn't distribute educational packets before the storm! Because kids have IEPs! Because teachers haven't planned!

News flash: many other counties can.

ACPS will shift to virtual learning Wednesday as schools remain closed
Tomorrow (Wednesday) will be a virtual workday for students and teachers at Alexandria City Public Schools.

ACPS facilities will remain closed for all activities for a third consecutive day due to inclement weather, Superintendent Melanie Kay-Wyatt announced this afternoon. Students, teachers and staff will instead move to synchronous virtual learning plans.

“Class times will include synchronous instruction via Zoom, which means live virtual instruction with teachers, as well as independent work,” Kay-Wyatt wrote. “Teachers will also provide virtual office hours. Schools will communicate the daily bell schedule for the school day.”

ACPS’ nutrition services plan to distribute lunches free of charge to students under 18 at the following locations from 10:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. tomorrow:

Families are encouraged to check students’ Canvas or Clever accounts “no later than 8 a.m.” for specifics about scheduling. Students’ attendance will be taken through these accounts.

That's impressive that ACPS not only did synchronous learning yesterday but also did food distribution for needy kids. Clearly their superintendent does more than make snow day videos.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

I prioritize GENUINE and EFFECTIVE instruction and learning. Which data thus far says happens best with in-person, face-to-face instruction.

Synthetic, virtual “learning” is not real education. It’s a crude imitation that yields weak academic results at best, and many emotional and developmental harms at worst.

A few days or a week is different and we don’t have high quality in person so stop pretending.

[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.

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/

But MCPS can't! Because it hasn't planned for it! Because it requires Board consultation! Because it didn't distribute Chromebooks before the storm! Because it didn't distribute educational packets before the storm! Because kids have IEPs! Because teachers haven't planned!

News flash: many other counties can.

ACPS will shift to virtual learning Wednesday as schools remain closed
Tomorrow (Wednesday) will be a virtual workday for students and teachers at Alexandria City Public Schools.

ACPS facilities will remain closed for all activities for a third consecutive day due to inclement weather, Superintendent Melanie Kay-Wyatt announced this afternoon. Students, teachers and staff will instead move to synchronous virtual learning plans.

“Class times will include synchronous instruction via Zoom, which means live virtual instruction with teachers, as well as independent work,” Kay-Wyatt wrote. “Teachers will also provide virtual office hours. Schools will communicate the daily bell schedule for the school day.”

ACPS’ nutrition services plan to distribute lunches free of charge to students under 18 at the following locations from 10:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. tomorrow:

Families are encouraged to check students’ Canvas or Clever accounts “no later than 8 a.m.” for specifics about scheduling. Students’ attendance will be taken through these accounts.

That's impressive that ACPS not only did synchronous learning yesterday but also did food distribution for needy kids. Clearly their superintendent does more than make snow day videos.

He’s failed our kids.

[Anonymous]

There's a whole lot of nearby districts providing more education than MCPS...

Alexandria VA-Live virtual learning started Wednesday, continues Thursday
DCPS-Asynchonous learning Wednesday, Thursday in-person with a two hour delay
Anne Arundel-real-time virtual instruction starting Thursday and including Friday
Baltimore City and Baltimore County-virtual starting Wednesday, automatic policy as they exceeded the three snow days built into their calendar.

[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.

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/

But MCPS can't! Because it hasn't planned for it! Because it requires Board consultation! Because it didn't distribute Chromebooks before the storm! Because it didn't distribute educational packets before the storm! Because kids have IEPs! Because teachers haven't planned!

News flash: many other counties can.

ACPS will shift to virtual learning Wednesday as schools remain closed
Tomorrow (Wednesday) will be a virtual workday for students and teachers at Alexandria City Public Schools.

ACPS facilities will remain closed for all activities for a third consecutive day due to inclement weather, Superintendent Melanie Kay-Wyatt announced this afternoon. Students, teachers and staff will instead move to synchronous virtual learning plans.

“Class times will include synchronous instruction via Zoom, which means live virtual instruction with teachers, as well as independent work,” Kay-Wyatt wrote. “Teachers will also provide virtual office hours. Schools will communicate the daily bell schedule for the school day.”

ACPS’ nutrition services plan to distribute lunches free of charge to students under 18 at the following locations from 10:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. tomorrow:

Families are encouraged to check students’ Canvas or Clever accounts “no later than 8 a.m.” for specifics about scheduling. Students’ attendance will be taken through these accounts.

That's impressive that ACPS not only did synchronous learning yesterday but also did food distribution for needy kids. Clearly their superintendent does more than make snow day videos.

+1 Kudos to ACPS. MCPS central office should take a field trip there and learn from them.

[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.

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/

But MCPS can't! Because it hasn't planned for it! Because it requires Board consultation! Because it didn't distribute Chromebooks before the storm! Because it didn't distribute educational packets before the storm! Because kids have IEPs! Because teachers haven't planned!

News flash: many other counties can.

ACPS will shift to virtual learning Wednesday as schools remain closed
Tomorrow (Wednesday) will be a virtual workday for students and teachers at Alexandria City Public Schools.

ACPS facilities will remain closed for all activities for a third consecutive day due to inclement weather, Superintendent Melanie Kay-Wyatt announced this afternoon. Students, teachers and staff will instead move to synchronous virtual learning plans.

“Class times will include synchronous instruction via Zoom, which means live virtual instruction with teachers, as well as independent work,” Kay-Wyatt wrote. “Teachers will also provide virtual office hours. Schools will communicate the daily bell schedule for the school day.”

ACPS’ nutrition services plan to distribute lunches free of charge to students under 18 at the following locations from 10:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. tomorrow:

Families are encouraged to check students’ Canvas or Clever accounts “no later than 8 a.m.” for specifics about scheduling. Students’ attendance will be taken through these accounts.

That's impressive that ACPS not only did synchronous learning yesterday but also did food distribution for needy kids. Clearly their superintendent does more than make snow day videos.

+1 Kudos to ACPS. MCPS central office should take a field trip there and learn from them.

Virtual learning is no one's first choice, but let's not let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

[Anonymous]

This is not true virtual learning as it’s a fill in for snow days.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is not true virtual learning as it’s a fill in for snow days.

It is an intervention to provide learning when in-person conditions do not allow, and it is indeed being provided virtually. The press releases from the various school districts (ACPS, Baltimore, NYC etc.) that have announced virtual learning have called it virtual learning.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is not true virtual learning as it’s a fill in for snow days.

It is an intervention to provide learning when in-person conditions do not allow, and it is indeed being provided virtually. The press releases from the various school districts (ACPS, Baltimore, NYC etc.) that have announced virtual learning have called it virtual learning.

It depends how it is set up. If they have full class time and a regular schedule, yes, otherwise it’s a fancy term for filling in the snow day gap.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is not true virtual learning as it’s a fill in for snow days.

It is an intervention to provide learning when in-person conditions do not allow, and it is indeed being provided virtually. The press releases from the various school districts (ACPS, Baltimore, NYC etc.) that have announced virtual learning have called it virtual learning.

It depends how it is set up. If they have full class time and a regular schedule, yes, otherwise it’s a fancy term for filling in the snow day gap.

From the Alexandria press release. I'm not an educator, but seems like virtual learning to me.

"ACPS will shift to virtual learning Wednesday as schools remain closed
Tomorrow (Wednesday) will be a virtual workday for students and teachers at Alexandria City Public Schools.

ACPS facilities will remain closed for all activities for a third consecutive day due to inclement weather, Superintendent Melanie Kay-Wyatt announced this afternoon. Students, teachers and staff will instead move to synchronous virtual learning plans.

“Class times will include synchronous instruction via Zoom, which means live virtual instruction with teachers, as well as independent work,” Kay-Wyatt wrote. “Teachers will also provide virtual office hours. Schools will communicate the daily bell schedule for the school day.”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

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.

There is not a single piece of research, for MCPS or nationwide, that you can point to, that supports your opinion that no academic instruction is superior to virtual learning.

Your "evidence" of virtual instruction failures, stated above, consists of a single newspaper article of complaining students who are mad about being asked to do work on a Jewish holiday and a single evaluation of MCPS summer school, which as mentioned above, is a narrow program covering a small number of students, along with being a program that has many design and implementation flaws.

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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.

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/

But MCPS can't! Because it hasn't planned for it! Because it requires Board consultation! Because it didn't distribute Chromebooks before the storm! Because it didn't distribute educational packets before the storm! Because kids have IEPs! Because teachers haven't planned!

News flash: many other counties can.

ACPS will shift to virtual learning Wednesday as schools remain closed
Tomorrow (Wednesday) will be a virtual workday for students and teachers at Alexandria City Public Schools.

ACPS facilities will remain closed for all activities for a third consecutive day due to inclement weather, Superintendent Melanie Kay-Wyatt announced this afternoon. Students, teachers and staff will instead move to synchronous virtual learning plans.

“Class times will include synchronous instruction via Zoom, which means live virtual instruction with teachers, as well as independent work,” Kay-Wyatt wrote. “Teachers will also provide virtual office hours. Schools will communicate the daily bell schedule for the school day.”

ACPS’ nutrition services plan to distribute lunches free of charge to students under 18 at the following locations from 10:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. tomorrow:

Families are encouraged to check students’ Canvas or Clever accounts “no later than 8 a.m.” for specifics about scheduling. Students’ attendance will be taken through these accounts.

That's impressive that ACPS not only did synchronous learning yesterday but also did food distribution for needy kids. Clearly their superintendent does more than make snow day videos.

MCPS prioritized food distribution sites in their cleanup. Just because you didn’t hear about it, doesn’t mean it’s not happening.