Schools closed for students Monday Feb 2

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The message said all schools are ready.

So then why the closure?

Because kids can't safely walk to school and they can't pick up students with disabilities. They lay that out in the message. The problem is this is unlikely to change any time soon.

Are the kids in Frederick County and the other MD counties that are open magically safer than the MoCo kids?

Other counties are not as densely populated as MCPS and it leads to much fewer walkers and less small neighborhood streets. Picking kids up at the end of their rural driveways is not an issue. Navigating a bus through Silver Spring is.

Those are often in walk zones. People have been walking all week.

.

No they haven’t. Utter BS

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Private school parent here and our school in Moco on a side street has been open on time since Thursday after 3 days of virtual school. Busses from many areas including VA and Frederick are transporting students on time.

You’re on the wrong board. Your kids are in private school. So maybe sit this one out

[Anonymous]

Remember this chaos when it comes time to vote out all these incompetent fools. Don’t listen to the harpies that say anyone who even whiffs of being a conservative is unfit. The time is now to save the children!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:PGCPS is 2 hour delay and they addressed specific neighborhood concerns while recognizing that they can't keep the entire county shut down. Why can't MCPS do the same?

Because Montgomery county doesn’t just consist of Bethesda, Chevy Chase and Rockville.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The message said all schools are ready.

So then why the closure?

Because kids can't safely walk to school and they can't pick up students with disabilities. They lay that out in the message. The problem is this is unlikely to change any time soon.

Are the kids in Frederick County and the other MD counties that are open magically safer than the MoCo kids?

Other counties are not as densely populated as MCPS and it leads to much fewer walkers and less small neighborhood streets. Picking kids up at the end of their rural driveways is not an issue. Navigating a bus through Silver Spring is.

Those are often in walk zones. People have been walking all week.

.

No they haven’t. Utter BS

I guess the people I’ve seen all week walking to work/supermarkets/the gym/metro/bus stops are phantom creatures because no one is walking anywhere because you say so.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Uggh.

I was thinking a 2 hour delay every day next week might happen.

I dont want any more days off, nor do I want to come in for a staff development day or whatever they are throwing together tomorrow.

-a teacher

I think it's a grading and planning day?

We’ve all had grades done since last week. This is ridiculous. Either open for real or don’t make us drive there just to sit and stare.

This is ridiculous. Teachers need more time to grade ever since the county implemented this new grading policy. Grading software simply isn't built to handle these kinds of complex operations. Take it from a MIT graduate and former NASA employee.

So I have to take off tomorrow to watch my kids who don't have school or bring them with me. This is dumb. Grades have been done for days. Send the kids too...

The school system is not in charge of your childcare. Good thing for you though, you seem to have options.

I have to go to jury duty tomorrow and leave my kids at home. Because the MoCo county courts have been open in Rockville since last Wednesday. MCPS just has a special kind of inertia.

.

The jury dirty excuse this is the lamest one I’ve seen on this board so far. Golden raspberry for you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does anyone know why MCPS doesn't have a plan on file? It's obvious that a virtual learning plan needs to demonstrate how it will help all students, including special needs kids. But if half of the counties in the state figured out how to get that done, then shouldn't MCPS have done so as well? It's just BS that every child does not have access to a chromebook, or couldn't, given what the county has spent. Or materials could have been sent home in advance if children do not have digital access or that type of learning doesn't work for them. The Board of Education needs to be held to account.
This is a killer for those of us who have sophomores and juniors in high school who will now have a week and a half (the way it's looking) of less preparation for AP exams and other standard national tests. and melt for younger students is real, too. I hope someone out there does a study on comparing how MCPS students did on these tests compared with schools that started virtual learning or went back to school in person last week.

Because there's no plausible way to make virtual effective for young students and students with special needs. Some people just don't care and want to do it anyway. None of the people here pushing for virtual care at all about lower elementary kids or students with disabilities.

So how did Baltimore and Anne Arundel do it? And DCPS? And Alexandria Public Schools? Why did they have virtual learning last week and McPS had nothing. There was a long list in the Washington Post of school status and a lot of districts were doing virtual.

Do all those school districts not care about lower elementary or students with disabilities?

Much more likely that they’re better at planning and making the best of crappy weather rather than doing nothing like MCPs.

It’s not that MCPS can’t. It’s that it’s too much effort when they can get away with doing nothing at all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The message said all schools are ready.

So then why the closure?

Because kids can't safely walk to school and they can't pick up students with disabilities. They lay that out in the message. The problem is this is unlikely to change any time soon.

Are the kids in Frederick County and the other MD counties that are open magically safer than the MoCo kids?

Other counties are not as densely populated as MCPS and it leads to much fewer walkers and less small neighborhood streets. Picking kids up at the end of their rural driveways is not an issue. Navigating a bus through Silver Spring is.

Those are often in walk zones. People have been walking all week.

People who are willing to accept the risk have been walking. People who think it’s too dangerous have not been out walking. With schools closed, MCPS has no liability for people walking. If MCPS opens, they potentially face liability or at least public condemnation should any accidents lead to injuries. That’s how there can be people out walking, yet MCPS’s risk/benefit analysis errs on the side of caution and schools remain closed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So what’s the plan. The snow/ice isn’t melting anytime soon. Are they planning to just stay closed??

Yes. If MoCo doesn’t want to invest in more plows, doesn’t want any child to walk on an icy sidewalk (which is totally common in other parts of the country where snow is managed better), then they just need to open a week or two earlier in August.

And then they can have 8 or 9 snow days and have a policy that no special snowflake of MCPS shall have their feet touch ice.

At a minimum they need to articulate a plan now for what they're to deal with this. The Board needs to tell us what days they're using as makeups and MCPS needs to tell us what the expectations are for reopening. Even just hearing that they're planning to use the makeup days before June would go a long way to reestablish trust.

We'll be lucky if they come up with a plan before the first contingency day

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Uggh.

I was thinking a 2 hour delay every day next week might happen.

I dont want any more days off, nor do I want to come in for a staff development day or whatever they are throwing together tomorrow.

-a teacher

I think it's a grading and planning day?

We’ve all had grades done since last week. This is ridiculous. Either open for real or don’t make us drive there just to sit and stare.

This is ridiculous. Teachers need more time to grade ever since the county implemented this new grading policy. Grading software simply isn't built to handle these kinds of complex operations. Take it from a MIT graduate and former NASA employee.

So I have to take off tomorrow to watch my kids who don't have school or bring them with me. This is dumb. Grades have been done for days. Send the kids too...

The school system is not in charge of your childcare. Good thing for you though, you seem to have options.

I have to go to jury duty tomorrow and leave my kids at home. Because the MoCo county courts have been open in Rockville since last Wednesday. MCPS just has a special kind of inertia.

.

The jury dirty excuse this is the lamest one I’ve seen on this board so far. Golden raspberry for you.

What’s lame about pointing out that life has been going on and people have been working at their workplaces for most of last week, even within MoCo government?

It’s just the MCPS staff who get to stay home.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The message said all schools are ready.

So then why the closure?

Because kids can't safely walk to school and they can't pick up students with disabilities. They lay that out in the message. The problem is this is unlikely to change any time soon.

Are the kids in Frederick County and the other MD counties that are open magically safer than the MoCo kids?

Other counties are not as densely populated as MCPS and it leads to much fewer walkers and less small neighborhood streets. Picking kids up at the end of their rural driveways is not an issue. Navigating a bus through Silver Spring is.

Those are often in walk zones. People have been walking all week.

.

No they haven’t. Utter BS

I guess the people I’ve seen all week walking to work/supermarkets/the gym/metro/bus stops are phantom creatures because no one is walking anywhere because you say so.

Not everyone has a car. I take public transport. People have been walking all week.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does anyone know why MCPS doesn't have a plan on file? It's obvious that a virtual learning plan needs to demonstrate how it will help all students, including special needs kids. But if half of the counties in the state figured out how to get that done, then shouldn't MCPS have done so as well? It's just BS that every child does not have access to a chromebook, or couldn't, given what the county has spent. Or materials could have been sent home in advance if children do not have digital access or that type of learning doesn't work for them. The Board of Education needs to be held to account.
This is a killer for those of us who have sophomores and juniors in high school who will now have a week and a half (the way it's looking) of less preparation for AP exams and other standard national tests. and melt for younger students is real, too. I hope someone out there does a study on comparing how MCPS students did on these tests compared with schools that started virtual learning or went back to school in person last week.

Because there's no plausible way to make virtual effective for young students and students with special needs. Some people just don't care and want to do it anyway. None of the people here pushing for virtual care at all about lower elementary kids or students with disabilities.

So how did Baltimore and Anne Arundel do it? And DCPS? And Alexandria Public Schools? Why did they have virtual learning last week and McPS had nothing. There was a long list in the Washington Post of school status and a lot of districts were doing virtual.

Do all those school districts not care about lower elementary or students with disabilities?

Much more likely that they’re better at planning and making the best of crappy weather rather than doing nothing like MCPs.

It’s not that MCPS can’t. It’s that it’s too much effort when they can get away with doing nothing at all.

But MCPS caaant! Because if we do anything parents complain! And no other school district in the country has parents who complain!

So we will do nothing because parents like that better. And if that just happens to be easier for our staff and the preference of our teacher’s union, so much the better.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The message said all schools are ready.

So then why the closure?

Because kids can't safely walk to school and they can't pick up students with disabilities. They lay that out in the message. The problem is this is unlikely to change any time soon.

Are the kids in Frederick County and the other MD counties that are open magically safer than the MoCo kids?

Other counties are not as densely populated as MCPS and it leads to much fewer walkers and less small neighborhood streets. Picking kids up at the end of their rural driveways is not an issue. Navigating a bus through Silver Spring is.

Those are often in walk zones. People have been walking all week.

.

No they haven’t. Utter BS

I guess the people I’ve seen all week walking to work/supermarkets/the gym/metro/bus stops are phantom creatures because no one is walking anywhere because you say so.

MCPS doesn’t have any responsibility for those people. They will have potential liability for students and staff upon opening.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The message said all schools are ready.

So then why the closure?

Because kids can't safely walk to school and they can't pick up students with disabilities. They lay that out in the message. The problem is this is unlikely to change any time soon.

You left off the top reason they gave us that many streets are too narrow for buses to drive or turn?

busses cannot get on our streets especially with no sidewalks and everyone walking in the street.

Lots of neighborhoods have walkers but no sidewalks all the time. Our buses manage the kids in the street.

I live in a neighborhood with few sidewalks for my kids to walk to school. They walk in the road normally anyway and the roads have been clear where I am since last Tuesday.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Private school parent here and our school in Moco on a side street has been open on time since Thursday after 3 days of virtual school. Busses from many areas including VA and Frederick are transporting students on time.

You’re on the wrong board. Your kids are in private school. So maybe sit this one out

Who knew that shoveling one or two parking lots was less work