MCPS closed tomorrow

[Anonymous]

Do you want MCPS to go back to calling school closures at 5am the day of so they have all the information when they make their call? If not, then just STFU.

When they made the call last night, the people hadn’t been rescued from the plane quite yet. The plane was still dangling from the tower. It seems like the plane was finally freed very early this morning.

How was MCPS to know what time it would have been freed. Yesterday - Pepco was giving an estimate of power being restored as tomorrow (today) afternoon. How was MCPS to know otherwise when they had to make the call?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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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?

Just guessing here, but because previous power outages didn’t involve 44 schools and a freak accident and middle of the night uncertainty.

You don’t think there have been any power outages going until 1am before? Really?

Are you new to the area?

This is childish. I’ve lived here for 20 years. This was a freak accident. Stop blaming “admin” or teachers or the union or whatever conspiracy people are imagining.

Again, have there been any power outages over those 20 years? How many closed MCPS buildings? How many closed the entire system?

Why are some people so unwilling to acknowledge mistakes?

You are trying to compare this never happened before incident to something in the past… there isn’t one. It’s a new day. Nobody owes you further explanation just because you cannot accept 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 am one of the people who is really upset about the slide backwards in academics and the gaps many students are facing in math, reading/writing, and foreign language. Your comments, in this thread on a power outage no less, really undermine conversations on how to keep us moving forward. These are two different issues and blaming teachers here provides easy fodder for those looking to blame parents and/or looking to dismiss our concerns.

For all of those complaining about the closure -- are you new to the school system? This is no different than sending kids home early for an ice storm that didn't happen (last year) or keeping school closed days and days after a storm because one small part of the county was still affected? (January 2016, anyone?) or all the weather-related calls MCPS makes every year (and where they always pick the most conservative options). Is it a pain and shameful that one of the largest school systems outside of the nation's capitol is not more nimble and adept? Yes, of course it is. Is it going to change while any of our children are in school? No, it is not. And it is certainly not going to change since Maryland organizes schools by county and we are a large, populous one.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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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?

It’s apples to oranges. These aren’t typical power lines from a snowstorm buddy.

Which is relevant to Pepco, not MCPS. Pepco got the power back on to schools with plenty of time to reopen this morning.

Actually, it is. They don’t make decisions in isolation. Other agencies help determine if it’s safe to open ragrdinf transportation, etc.

Is any other business/school not open? Privates are open. I only know of one pool that can't open today because it's systems need more time to run filters. Please explain why only MCPS must close.

Montgomery College.

Anyway, there is literally no business in the county at the size and scale of MCPS so this is a silly comparison.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do you want MCPS to go back to calling school closures at 5am the day of so they have all the information when they make their call? If not, then just STFU.

Between making the call at 5am versus midnight? Yes, make it at 5am. Particularly when the odds were very, very good that the majority of schools in MCPS would have power.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do you want MCPS to go back to calling school closures at 5am the day of so they have all the information when they make their call? If not, then just STFU.

When they made the call last night, the people hadn’t been rescued from the plane quite yet. The plane was still dangling from the tower. It seems like the plane was finally freed very early this morning.

How was MCPS to know what time it would have been freed. Yesterday - Pepco was giving an estimate of power being restored as tomorrow (today) afternoon. How was MCPS to know otherwise when they had to make the call?

They gave themselves an out to reassess at 5 am, which they should have taken.

[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: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?

It’s apples to oranges. These aren’t typical power lines from a snowstorm buddy.

Which is relevant to Pepco, not MCPS. Pepco got the power back on to schools with plenty of time to reopen this morning.

Actually, it is. They don’t make decisions in isolation. Other agencies help determine if it’s safe to open ragrdinf transportation, etc.

Is any other business/school not open? Privates are open. I only know of one pool that can't open today because it's systems need more time to run filters. Please explain why only MCPS must close.

Montgomery College.

Anyway, there is literally no business in the county at the size and scale of MCPS so this is a silly comparison.

yes, it's amazing the entire rest of the county is up and running normally.

[Anonymous]

They posted no school at 11pm last night. Why not wait until morning like a snow day? We can have a separate conversation about what drives teachers out of the profession. I was a high school teacher for 18 years, and parents questioning ridiculous decisions made by the superintendent isn't what drove me to quit. Good teachers encourage questions. No school on a 50 degree Nov day? Mcps can give kids a simple lunch for those who don't have food at home. Better than nothing.

Have a back up plan mcps. Our kids need to be in school, and this is your job. Step it up and figure it out.

[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.

We’ve had power outages before. Can you point to any examples where an outage that was resolved 6 hours before the next school day caused a system-wide closure because of busing or school lunch problems?

NP here. Can you point to any examples of power outages in the past where a critical infrastructure power tower was taken out? This is not the same as a few downed power lines or one local generator. The Midatlantic region and the NE US power grid is an interwoven power grid. WTOP reported that the power station that was taken out was part of the grid that could affect power throughout the area and into the northeast. For the rescue and restoration last night, they diverted power from the tower to other towers so that they could shut down the tower, ground the entire tower so that any residual power was dispersed before they could support the plane and rescue the passengers. Power in the area will be out for a while. They have to disentangle the plane from the wires and restring power lines. Once they do all that, they'll have to restore power to the tower. The grid is not optimal when you have power diverted around one of the key points. When they restore power to the tower and put it back into the grid, there will be another power outage of indeterminate time.

With no current estimate for when any work will be completed, other than "sometime today", plus with traffic in various locations that may be affected, they did not want children on school buses in areas where they may be disabled traffic lights. They didn't want children in schools when the HVAC and power may shut down for a few hours. They didn't want children in schools when there was no guarantee that they could feed the children. They didn't want children in school when there might be an emergency that they could not predict or plan around.

There are a lot of safety issues in play. There is also the possibility that there may be another potentially long power outage sometime today to restore the power grid and there is a lot of uncertainty around that that makes it unreasonable to open schools and have thousands of children in schools without the resources to provide them the appropriate care and instruction.

So,

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

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?

It’s apples to oranges. These aren’t typical power lines from a snowstorm buddy.

Which is relevant to Pepco, not MCPS. Pepco got the power back on to schools with plenty of time to reopen this morning.

Actually, it is. They don’t make decisions in isolation. Other agencies help determine if it’s safe to open ragrdinf transportation, etc.

Is any other business/school not open? Privates are open. I only know of one pool that can't open today because it's systems need more time to run filters. Please explain why only MCPS must close.

Montgomery College.

Anyway, there is literally no business in the county at the size and scale of MCPS so this is a silly comparison.

yes, it's amazing the entire rest of the county is up and running normally.

I think a lot of it is driven by the fact that it is not so easy to send public school kids home in the event of recurring power outages. If an office building loses power, employees can get themselves home. If a private school loses power, parents come and pick up their kids. If a public school loses power, do you drop 7 year olds off at their bus stops and hope a parent is home?

[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: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?

It’s apples to oranges. These aren’t typical power lines from a snowstorm buddy.

Which is relevant to Pepco, not MCPS. Pepco got the power back on to schools with plenty of time to reopen this morning.

Actually, it is. They don’t make decisions in isolation. Other agencies help determine if it’s safe to open ragrdinf transportation, etc.

Is any other business/school not open? Privates are open. I only know of one pool that can't open today because it's systems need more time to run filters. Please explain why only MCPS must close.

Montgomery College.

Anyway, there is literally no business in the county at the size and scale of MCPS so this is a silly comparison.

yes, it's amazing the entire rest of the county is up and running normally.

I think a lot of it is driven by the fact that it is not so easy to send public school kids home in the event of recurring power outages. If an office building loses power, employees can get themselves home. If a private school loses power, parents come and pick up their kids. If a public school loses power, do you drop 7 year olds off at their bus stops and hope a parent is home?

OK so now we're keeping them home just in case we lose power again?

[Anonymous]

Not one argument in this thread sways me from the obvious conclusion. .Today's school closing is embarrassing and pathetic

[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: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?

It’s apples to oranges. These aren’t typical power lines from a snowstorm buddy.

Which is relevant to Pepco, not MCPS. Pepco got the power back on to schools with plenty of time to reopen this morning.

Actually, it is. They don’t make decisions in isolation. Other agencies help determine if it’s safe to open ragrdinf transportation, etc.

Is any other business/school not open? Privates are open. I only know of one pool that can't open today because it's systems need more time to run filters. Please explain why only MCPS must close.

Montgomery College.

Anyway, there is literally no business in the county at the size and scale of MCPS so this is a silly comparison.

yes, it's amazing the entire rest of the county is up and running normally.

I think a lot of it is driven by the fact that it is not so easy to send public school kids home in the event of recurring power outages. If an office building loses power, employees can get themselves home. If a private school loses power, parents come and pick up their kids. If a public school loses power, do you drop 7 year olds off at their bus stops and hope a parent is home?

OK so now we're keeping them home just in case we lose power again?

I imagine yes, there were concerns last night and early this morning that since critical energy infrastructure was damaged that there is a likelihood that power would be out in schools today, and if it came back it might go out again.

[Anonymous]

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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?

It’s apples to oranges. These aren’t typical power lines from a snowstorm buddy.

Which is relevant to Pepco, not MCPS. Pepco got the power back on to schools with plenty of time to reopen this morning.

Actually, it is. They don’t make decisions in isolation. Other agencies help determine if it’s safe to open ragrdinf transportation, etc.

Is any other business/school not open? Privates are open. I only know of one pool that can't open today because it's systems need more time to run filters. Please explain why only MCPS must close.

Montgomery College.

Anyway, there is literally no business in the county at the size and scale of MCPS so this is a silly comparison.

yes, it's amazing the entire rest of the county is up and running normally.

I think a lot of it is driven by the fact that it is not so easy to send public school kids home in the event of recurring power outages. If an office building loses power, employees can get themselves home. If a private school loses power, parents come and pick up their kids. If a public school loses power, do you drop 7 year olds off at their bus stops and hope a parent is home?

OK so now we're keeping them home just in case we lose power again?

I imagine yes, there were concerns last night and early this morning that since critical energy infrastructure was damaged that there is a likelihood that power would be out in schools today, and if it came back it might go out again.

Best keep ‘em home again tomorrow to make sure there won’t be follow up power outages!
I can’t believe people are trying to justify this closure.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Do you want MCPS to go back to calling school closures at 5am the day of so they have all the information when they make their call? If not, then just STFU.

When they made the call last night, the people hadn’t been rescued from the plane quite yet. The plane was still dangling from the tower. It seems like the plane was finally freed very early this morning.

How was MCPS to know what time it would have been freed. Yesterday - Pepco was giving an estimate of power being restored as tomorrow (today) afternoon. How was MCPS to know otherwise when they had to make the call?

They gave themselves an out to reassess at 5 am, which they should have taken.

Exactly. They said they would reassess. Power came on at 1 AM. The AM announcement claimed power didn't come on until 4 AM. PEPCO lied? MCPS lied?