MCPS Officially announces schools opening as planned

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The updates read more like a CYA for inevitable closures/distributions. At a minimum I would expect a lot of disruptions. For example, many staff out, students without teachers covered by other teachers on their planning or even worse mass housed in cafeterias/gyms/auditoriums with a few warm adult bodies "supervising".

You want Academic rigor... extra support to fill in your child's learning gaps? Supplement. The reality of the situation as it is you get what you get and you don't throw a fit. If you can offer support and time to volunteer that would make a much bigger difference than complaining.

If I was still teaching I'd forward all parent complaints about disruptions to my admin for them to handle with a neutral statement "thank you for your message I have forwarded this to our administration/leadership". All of this is so far above an individual teacher's scope and pay grade. I changed careers prepandemic and I couldn't imagine teaching now. I expect record turnover and further decline. If you want the best for your kids, i implore you to be civil to those trying to serve your students.

As a former long term sub, I agree.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I certainly hope they are cancelling super spreader indoor field trips

You mean, like daily lunch? The elbow-to-elbow, maskless Omicron fest that will happen each and every day?

Yeah, not looking forward to that. I am NOT faulting any teacher right now who wants to quit, or who feels like a sitting duck in this situation.

Don’t forget breakfast in the classroom. Students enter the classroom with their bag of food, unmask to eat and drink for about 15+ minutes every day.

How did that go this fall? I assume by how alarmed people were by it, that we would have seen massive casualties at every school.

Omicron is 10 times more transmissible than Delta.

If you can't keep up with the facts, don't post your pointless drivel.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I certainly hope they are cancelling super spreader indoor field trips

You mean, like daily lunch? The elbow-to-elbow, maskless Omicron fest that will happen each and every day?

Yeah, not looking forward to that. I am NOT faulting any teacher right now who wants to quit, or who feels like a sitting duck in this situation.

Don’t forget breakfast in the classroom. Students enter the classroom with their bag of food, unmask to eat and drink for about 15+ minutes every day.

How did that go this fall? I assume by how alarmed people were by it, that we would have seen massive casualties at every school.

Huh? Covid did spread at school and Omicron spreads even easier so. . . .

Well, in the fall, hospitalizations and deaths from Covid remained low despite these daily super spreader events at hundreds of schools across the county, so you'll have to forgive those of us who are a little skeptical that in person schoing will result in a Covid apocalypse. Cases and hospitalizations and deaths are up now, and are going up no matter what schools do.

Stop it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I certainly hope they are cancelling super spreader indoor field trips

You mean, like daily lunch? The elbow-to-elbow, maskless Omicron fest that will happen each and every day?

Yeah, not looking forward to that. I am NOT faulting any teacher right now who wants to quit, or who feels like a sitting duck in this situation.

Don’t forget breakfast in the classroom. Students enter the classroom with their bag of food, unmask to eat and drink for about 15+ minutes every day.

How did that go this fall? I assume by how alarmed people were by it, that we would have seen massive casualties at every school.

Omicron is 10 times more transmissible than Delta.

If you can't keep up with the facts, don't post your pointless drivel.

And wildly less serious. Keep up with the facts

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I certainly hope they are cancelling super spreader indoor field trips

You mean, like daily lunch? The elbow-to-elbow, maskless Omicron fest that will happen each and every day?

Yeah, not looking forward to that. I am NOT faulting any teacher right now who wants to quit, or who feels like a sitting duck in this situation.

Don’t forget breakfast in the classroom. Students enter the classroom with their bag of food, unmask to eat and drink for about 15+ minutes every day.

How did that go this fall? I assume by how alarmed people were by it, that we would have seen massive casualties at every school.

Omicron is 10 times more transmissible than Delta.

If you can't keep up with the facts, don't post your pointless drivel.

And wildly less serious. Keep up with the facts

Typical liberal to leave out the most pertinent fact because it destroys their argument.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I certainly hope they are cancelling super spreader indoor field trips

You mean, like daily lunch? The elbow-to-elbow, maskless Omicron fest that will happen each and every day?

Yeah, not looking forward to that. I am NOT faulting any teacher right now who wants to quit, or who feels like a sitting duck in this situation.

Don’t forget breakfast in the classroom. Students enter the classroom with their bag of food, unmask to eat and drink for about 15+ minutes every day.

How did that go this fall? I assume by how alarmed people were by it, that we would have seen massive casualties at every school.

Huh? Covid did spread at school and Omicron spreads even easier so. . . .

Well, in the fall, hospitalizations and deaths from Covid remained low despite these daily super spreader events at hundreds of schools across the county, so you'll have to forgive those of us who are a little skeptical that in person schoing will result in a Covid apocalypse. Cases and hospitalizations and deaths are up now, and are going up no matter what schools do.

Stop it.

Oh okay, yes I'm sorry that was insensitive of me to.point out that all the horror stories about school reopening were lies.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I certainly hope they are cancelling super spreader indoor field trips

You mean, like daily lunch? The elbow-to-elbow, maskless Omicron fest that will happen each and every day?

Yeah, not looking forward to that. I am NOT faulting any teacher right now who wants to quit, or who feels like a sitting duck in this situation.

Don’t forget breakfast in the classroom. Students enter the classroom with their bag of food, unmask to eat and drink for about 15+ minutes every day.

How did that go this fall? I assume by how alarmed people were by it, that we would have seen massive casualties at every school.

Huh? Covid did spread at school and Omicron spreads even easier so. . . .

Well, in the fall, hospitalizations and deaths from Covid remained low despite these daily super spreader events at hundreds of schools across the county, so you'll have to forgive those of us who are a little skeptical that in person schoing will result in a Covid apocalypse. Cases and hospitalizations and deaths are up now, and are going up no matter what schools do.

Stop it.

Oh okay, yes I'm sorry that was insensitive of me to.point out that all the horror stories about school reopening were lies.

You may care, but many don't care. MCPS is run by politicians. MCPS is staying open to please the voters, not what is best for the students, staff and community. Most people only care about themselves. The only way we will get this under control in the next few weeks is behavior. That's not going to happen so eventually many will catch it and it will be pushed out by the next variant, if we don't have one already given all the travel.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I certainly hope they are cancelling super spreader indoor field trips

You mean, like daily lunch? The elbow-to-elbow, maskless Omicron fest that will happen each and every day?

Yeah, not looking forward to that. I am NOT faulting any teacher right now who wants to quit, or who feels like a sitting duck in this situation.

Don’t forget breakfast in the classroom. Students enter the classroom with their bag of food, unmask to eat and drink for about 15+ minutes every day.

How did that go this fall? I assume by how alarmed people were by it, that we would have seen massive casualties at every school.

Huh? Covid did spread at school and Omicron spreads even easier so. . . .

Well, in the fall, hospitalizations and deaths from Covid remained low despite these daily super spreader events at hundreds of schools across the county, so you'll have to forgive those of us who are a little skeptical that in person schoing will result in a Covid apocalypse. Cases and hospitalizations and deaths are up now, and are going up no matter what schools do.

Stop it.

Oh okay, yes I'm sorry that was insensitive of me to.point out that all the horror stories about school reopening were lies.

You may care, but many don't care. MCPS is run by politicians. MCPS is staying open to please the voters, not what is best for the students, staff and community. Most people only care about themselves. The only way we will get this under control in the next few weeks is behavior. That's not going to happen so eventually many will catch it and it will be pushed out by the next variant, if we don't have one already given all the travel.

NP. What behavior do you envision?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I certainly hope they are cancelling super spreader indoor field trips

You mean, like daily lunch? The elbow-to-elbow, maskless Omicron fest that will happen each and every day?

Yeah, not looking forward to that. I am NOT faulting any teacher right now who wants to quit, or who feels like a sitting duck in this situation.

Don’t forget breakfast in the classroom. Students enter the classroom with their bag of food, unmask to eat and drink for about 15+ minutes every day.

How did that go this fall? I assume by how alarmed people were by it, that we would have seen massive casualties at every school.

Huh? Covid did spread at school and Omicron spreads even easier so. . . .

Well, in the fall, hospitalizations and deaths from Covid remained low despite these daily super spreader events at hundreds of schools across the county, so you'll have to forgive those of us who are a little skeptical that in person schoing will result in a Covid apocalypse. Cases and hospitalizations and deaths are up now, and are going up no matter what schools do.

Stop it.

Oh okay, yes I'm sorry that was insensitive of me to.point out that all the horror stories about school reopening were lies.

You may care, but many don't care. MCPS is run by politicians. MCPS is staying open to please the voters, not what is best for the students, staff and community. Most people only care about themselves. The only way we will get this under control in the next few weeks is behavior. That's not going to happen so eventually many will catch it and it will be pushed out by the next variant, if we don't have one already given all the travel.

So many parts of this post are nonsensical. Voters are the community, so if what you’re saying is right- that MCPS is staying open to please the voters- then they’re doing what is best for the community. COVID isn’t going to be contained through behavior. We’ll be able to slightly increase or decrease the rate of cases, but not significantly so. It will only be “contained” through acquired immunity from vaccination and infection, with contain referring more to the natural decrease in severity rather than a significant decrease in cases.

And the idea that anything MCPS does has any sort of non-trivial impact on the development of variants is laughable. 180,000 students and staff versus 7.8 billion people in the world.

[Anonymous]

Here's what they should do for this week, and perhaps most of January til cases head down.

1. On Monday-Tuesday, test every kid who is at school (none of this sending tests home). If there are tests available, repeat this every Monday-Tuesday til cases head down.

2. Have kids on an alternating schedule A-M; N-Z. Last year when they did this, they allowed special needs kids to come every day and I've no idea how this affects numbers but in principle I'd be fine with it. Could make the same accommodation for at-risk kids (based on MAP scores or something) though I suspect this wouldn't work, but in principle, a good idea. The goal would be that each classroom would be at about 60% capacity. The other half of the class would be online the other day (the way they did last year).
3. There would be some threshold (maybe school-level threshold) for going back to 100%... probably feasible by late January.
What this achieves:
-Kids are back in school 5 out of 10 days every two weeks, so the mental health and other issues cited last year would be less prominent.
-Teachers could continue to give real tests (not open-note/at home tests), though they'd need to make two versions of any tests since kids would be taking on different days. They could more easily pull out kids who need extra attention or have questions when those kids are in person.
-Social distancing (which frankly didn't exist in fall semester despite what MCPS said) would be feasible. Teachers could arrange the classroom to stay farther away from kids while teaching.
-Any infected kid would expose fewer others.
-Kids who are out of school either in quarantine or with less symptomatic covid or because of parents' fear would have a real educational option-- they'd just log in virtually every day. (Something would need to be worked out for those in-person tests, but that's doable.)

Viola.

[Anonymous]

That requires hybrid teaching which is ineffective.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Here's what they should do for this week, and perhaps most of January til cases head down.

1. On Monday-Tuesday, test every kid who is at school (none of this sending tests home). If there are tests available, repeat this every Monday-Tuesday til cases head down.

2. Have kids on an alternating schedule A-M; N-Z. Last year when they did this, they allowed special needs kids to come every day and I've no idea how this affects numbers but in principle I'd be fine with it. Could make the same accommodation for at-risk kids (based on MAP scores or something) though I suspect this wouldn't work, but in principle, a good idea. The goal would be that each classroom would be at about 60% capacity. The other half of the class would be online the other day (the way they did last year).
3. There would be some threshold (maybe school-level threshold) for going back to 100%... probably feasible by late January.
What this achieves:
-Kids are back in school 5 out of 10 days every two weeks, so the mental health and other issues cited last year would be less prominent.
-Teachers could continue to give real tests (not open-note/at home tests), though they'd need to make two versions of any tests since kids would be taking on different days. They could more easily pull out kids who need extra attention or have questions when those kids are in person.
-Social distancing (which frankly didn't exist in fall semester despite what MCPS said) would be feasible. Teachers could arrange the classroom to stay farther away from kids while teaching.
-Any infected kid would expose fewer others.
-Kids who are out of school either in quarantine or with less symptomatic covid or because of parents' fear would have a real educational option-- they'd just log in virtually every day. (Something would need to be worked out for those in-person tests, but that's doable.)

Viola.

This is just hybrid, which almost everyone thought was worst than virtual or full in-person.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Here's what they should do for this week, and perhaps most of January til cases head down.

1. On Monday-Tuesday, test every kid who is at school (none of this sending tests home). If there are tests available, repeat this every Monday-Tuesday til cases head down.

2. Have kids on an alternating schedule A-M; N-Z. Last year when they did this, they allowed special needs kids to come every day and I've no idea how this affects numbers but in principle I'd be fine with it. Could make the same accommodation for at-risk kids (based on MAP scores or something) though I suspect this wouldn't work, but in principle, a good idea. The goal would be that each classroom would be at about 60% capacity. The other half of the class would be online the other day (the way they did last year).
3. There would be some threshold (maybe school-level threshold) for going back to 100%... probably feasible by late January.
What this achieves:
-Kids are back in school 5 out of 10 days every two weeks, so the mental health and other issues cited last year would be less prominent.
-Teachers could continue to give real tests (not open-note/at home tests), though they'd need to make two versions of any tests since kids would be taking on different days. They could more easily pull out kids who need extra attention or have questions when those kids are in person.
-Social distancing (which frankly didn't exist in fall semester despite what MCPS said) would be feasible. Teachers could arrange the classroom to stay farther away from kids while teaching.
-Any infected kid would expose fewer others.
-Kids who are out of school either in quarantine or with less symptomatic covid or because of parents' fear would have a real educational option-- they'd just log in virtually every day. (Something would need to be worked out for those in-person tests, but that's doable.)

Viola.

Lots of bad ideas in here. Teachers don't want concurrent (and they're right) so it's a non-starter. Social distancing is a relic of 2020 (droplet vs. aerosol) so is wholly irrelevant. There aren't 150,000 tests laying around (which only capture a moment in time and rapid tests not very effective at capturing Omicron).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I certainly hope they are cancelling super spreader indoor field trips

You mean, like daily lunch? The elbow-to-elbow, maskless Omicron fest that will happen each and every day?

Yeah, not looking forward to that. I am NOT faulting any teacher right now who wants to quit, or who feels like a sitting duck in this situation.

Don’t forget breakfast in the classroom. Students enter the classroom with their bag of food, unmask to eat and drink for about 15+ minutes every day.

How did that go this fall? I assume by how alarmed people were by it, that we would have seen massive casualties at every school.

Omicron is 10 times more transmissible than Delta.

If you can't keep up with the facts, don't post your pointless drivel.

+1000

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here's what they should do for this week, and perhaps most of January til cases head down.

1. On Monday-Tuesday, test every kid who is at school (none of this sending tests home). If there are tests available, repeat this every Monday-Tuesday til cases head down.

2. Have kids on an alternating schedule A-M; N-Z. Last year when they did this, they allowed special needs kids to come every day and I've no idea how this affects numbers but in principle I'd be fine with it. Could make the same accommodation for at-risk kids (based on MAP scores or something) though I suspect this wouldn't work, but in principle, a good idea. The goal would be that each classroom would be at about 60% capacity. The other half of the class would be online the other day (the way they did last year).
3. There would be some threshold (maybe school-level threshold) for going back to 100%... probably feasible by late January.
What this achieves:
-Kids are back in school 5 out of 10 days every two weeks, so the mental health and other issues cited last year would be less prominent.
-Teachers could continue to give real tests (not open-note/at home tests), though they'd need to make two versions of any tests since kids would be taking on different days. They could more easily pull out kids who need extra attention or have questions when those kids are in person.
-Social distancing (which frankly didn't exist in fall semester despite what MCPS said) would be feasible. Teachers could arrange the classroom to stay farther away from kids while teaching.
-Any infected kid would expose fewer others.
-Kids who are out of school either in quarantine or with less symptomatic covid or because of parents' fear would have a real educational option-- they'd just log in virtually every day. (Something would need to be worked out for those in-person tests, but that's doable.)

Viola.

Lots of bad ideas in here. Teachers don't want concurrent (and they're right) so it's a non-starter. Social distancing is a relic of 2020 (droplet vs. aerosol) so is wholly irrelevant. There aren't 150,000 tests laying around (which only capture a moment in time and rapid tests not very effective at capturing Omicron).

^ the latest FOX News Talking points for covid deniers...