MCPS closed tomorrow

[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.

People, you mean the MCPS public relations department working hard on here to once again cover up for incompetence and poor messaging by McKnight and Wolff.

[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.

That's a great idea.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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?

My reading was that they’d verified all schools and offices had power back by 4AM. Unless they had someone at every single school and office building at 1 AM when Pepco said it was restored, they couldn’t be sure.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m old enough to remember when MCPS made decisions to close schools at 5am. Everyone complained about the timing of the decisions (and the decision itself) saying MCPS didn’t give enough notice for closures.

The new superintendent started announcing closures the night before. Now we have the issue of things can change overnight and schools may not need to close after all.

Stop complaining - if MCPS waits until 5 am to make the call so they have a current idea of the situation, people will complain. If MCPS makes the call the night before even though a situation can change overnight, people will complain.

Yes, all of this. With a 160,000 student school system that is spread out geographically, you will always have a group that complains loudly.

This is just warm up for winter.

And that group loves to complain loudly on DCUM!

[Anonymous]

Can you imagine the outcry if at 5am they took back their message that schools were closed???

[Anonymous]

Why is this inconvenience hard for people to accept? It is for the safety of children. If something were to happen because traffic lights were down for the bus or their kid couldn't get a hot lunch, then Im certain people would still be here complaining with a lawyer in tow.

[Anonymous]

Also disappointed with some of the parent responses here. Toughen up. Stop with the excuses. Schools should have been open today. Some never lost power for even a minute. Expect more from your school system. Just be reasonable with your expectations.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why is this inconvenience hard for people to accept? It is for the safety of children. If something were to happen because traffic lights were down for the bus or their kid couldn't get a hot lunch, then Im certain people would still be here complaining with a lawyer in tow.

And this is exactly what I'm talking about...toughen up.

[Anonymous]

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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.

No one cares if you trust MCPS or not.
Feel free to leave and move to PG or Frederick or to private school.
Some of you parents are the worst. Chill out a little.
I used to live in Indiana and man, this area is so uptight.
Everyone is constantly just complaining and whining about every little thing.
Maybe look in the mirror. Rant over now.

Like the teacher that complained that she couldn’t possibly be expected to go to work if she wasn’t able to blow dry her hair this morning?

I’m from the midwest, too. There’s absolutely no way this would have closed schools where I grew up.

+1
People in the midwest where I'm from would never tolerate half this bullshit and it wouldn't happen in the first place.

They just whine about tornado closures.

[Anonymous]

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?

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.

Okay, at this point you need to recognize that if you have this much time to post on DCUM, you are going to be fine today and need to relax.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why is this inconvenience hard for people to accept? It is for the safety of children. If something were to happen because traffic lights were down for the bus or their kid couldn't get a hot lunch, then Im certain people would still be here complaining with a lawyer in tow.

Is the bolded a serious question? MCPS was closed for a year, well past the time when most school systems in the country were back open. Many parents are still dealing with the impacts those closures had on their kids. Proximally, kids basically had last week off, since nothing was done on the two half days.

So, yeah.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why is this inconvenience hard for people to accept? It is for the safety of children. If something were to happen because traffic lights were down for the bus or their kid couldn't get a hot lunch, then Im certain people would still be here complaining with a lawyer in tow.

And this is exactly what I'm talking about...toughen up.

Yes but mommy had to cancel her Barre class that she'd been looking forward to after taking care of her kids for 5 days straight.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why is this inconvenience hard for people to accept? It is for the safety of children. If something were to happen because traffic lights were down for the bus or their kid couldn't get a hot lunch, then Im certain people would still be here complaining with a lawyer in tow.

Is the bolded a serious question? MCPS was closed for a year, well past the time when most school systems in the country were back open. Many parents are still dealing with the impacts those closures had on their kids. Proximally, kids basically had last week off, since nothing was done on the two half days.

So, yeah.

The fact that people are linking a pandemic closure to a freak one day accident says a lot about the general mindset of these parents

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why is this inconvenience hard for people to accept? It is for the safety of children. If something were to happen because traffic lights were down for the bus or their kid couldn't get a hot lunch, then Im certain people would still be here complaining with a lawyer in tow.

Is the bolded a serious question? MCPS was closed for a year, well past the time when most school systems in the country were back open. Many parents are still dealing with the impacts those closures had on their kids. Proximally, kids basically had last week off, since nothing was done on the two half days.

So, yeah.

The fact that people are linking a pandemic closure to a freak one day accident says a lot about the general mindset of these parents

+10000

It's like they have PTSD from dealing with their own children.

[Anonymous]

Ha! Is this the way you see it? So, so silly. Our kids are falling behind in basic skills. It's common sense. What's a Barre class? Lol.