School closed 1/20/22

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The fact is they weather is unpredictable. But at 7 am it was already clear they the feared accumulation wasn’t going to happen. MCPS could have simply continued with a two-hit delay. They would have made sense given they made that call last night. But instead they made the silly decision to close. Why?

They're looking for COVID circuit breakers anywhere they can find them.

Yeah this is my problem with the call. Not that they issued the 2-hr delay yesterday based on (what we know now was) a faulty forecast. But then at 7 am, when forecasters had changed the prediction, and there obviously wasn't snow, they upgraded to closure instead of recognizing that even the 2-hr delay was probably unnecessary. That made no sense whatsoever and fuels the politics/conspiracy talk.

I don’t have a problem with it. It would be better if they could be transparent without getting death threats, but that’s not reality.

Great that you seem unperturbed. Not everyone is seeing it the same way and no one is getting death threats.

If you think that public officials, including the MCPS school board and administrators, are not receiving death threats related to their handling of COVID, all I can say is that you have your head deeply in the sand.

[Anonymous]

I had to giggle when I got the closure text this morning only to get a delay text shortly thereafter- it referenced “tomorrow” and I was like sweet Jesus, it’s still raining and they’re calling a delay for Friday already?! Then I realized it was a text I should have gotten last night but didn’t (I received an email but not text). The principal had to send a clarifying message and then I got get another text from MCPS saying “closed” so I must not have been the only one who received the texts in that order?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The fact is they weather is unpredictable. But at 7 am it was already clear they the feared accumulation wasn’t going to happen. MCPS could have simply continued with a two-hit delay. They would have made sense given they made that call last night. But instead they made the silly decision to close. Why?

This is the key question.

The Capital Weather Gang provides all its updates this morning with timestamps.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2022/01/20/dc-maryland-virginia-snow-burst/

At 5AM they called for an accumulation of an inch or two with the main burst between 8am and 11am
At 6:20 AM they said the changeover to snow was delayed but would likely occur between 8am and 10am rather than the previously predicted 6am - 8am.
At 7:20 AM they said there were reports of snow in western Loudoun County but that the changeover was occurring slower than projected.
At 7:30 AM a report from the National Weather Service kept the winter weather advisory in place though they were now calling for only up to 1 inch
At 8:20AM CWG called it a "snow bust"

So I'd say that at 7AM there was still reasonable expectation for a winter weather event.

Okay, but they had already called a two hour delay. No new information they received would lead someone to change from a 2 hour delay to a full closure. Their decision making ran fully counter to the direction of the forecast.

Agree. It wasn't like MCPS just stayed put. It ran opposite to the trend line and also, as a PP pointed out, contrary to what they would have observed if they just stepped outside at 7:00.

And even if late breaking, the worst-case scenario was 1-2"! It was not remotely commensurate to the predictions of first week of Jan!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Explain how this makes sense- Our school was supposed to start virtual today due to covid through the 28th. In actuality today was supposed to be teacher planning day while kids do asynchronous learning; then zoom learning tomorrow.
So now I get this email that says because today is a snow day- planning day & asynchronous learning has been moved to tomorrow. And with Professional day on Monday, our kids won't do any real learning till Tuesday next week. What a load of crap. Why couldn't teachers plan today?

Incredible. This is what happens when an organization is working for its own interests instead of for its mission.

I am usually not the type of person to complain so much about MCPS and I've been very sympathetic to the challenges they've been facing lately but this angers me. Absolutely ridiculous.

I’m sure employment contracts address snow days. MCPS can’t just ask if these teachers will pretty please work today, even though they’re not required to, while the vast majority are off.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Explain how this makes sense- Our school was supposed to start virtual today due to covid through the 28th. In actuality today was supposed to be teacher planning day while kids do asynchronous learning; then zoom learning tomorrow.
So now I get this email that says because today is a snow day- planning day & asynchronous learning has been moved to tomorrow. And with Professional day on Monday, our kids won't do any real learning till Tuesday next week. What a load of crap. Why couldn't teachers plan today?

Incredible. This is what happens when an organization is working for its own interests instead of for its mission.

I am usually not the type of person to complain so much about MCPS and I've been very sympathetic to the challenges they've been facing lately but this angers me. Absolutely ridiculous.

I’m sure employment contracts address snow days. MCPS can’t just ask if these teachers will pretty please work today, even though they’re not required to, while the vast majority are off.

Or how about this- they could've just given the kids off today if they were so concerned about the snow but make all teachers work from home.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The DMV is full of lame, coddled, afraid of everything in the world, weaklings. It’s is a disgrace that schools shut down - after many months of lost in person time - to rain. Did the person calling the shots not walk outside at 7:05? It was mild - 40 easy - and raining. Pathetic.

And just last week it was raining until it was snowing - hard. Local officials are a bit gun shy right now.

Can't have Larla stuck on a bus somewhere!

It doesn’t take a meteorologist to know that for the small amount of snow forecast, even if it did turn to snow early enough to get the 1-2 inches, it was not going to stick that much given the warm ground. Totally different situation from last week.

Um - "it was not going to stick that much given the warm ground."

Holy short-term memory, Batman! It was mid-60s the day before Virginia had their 24 hour traffic jam last week.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The DMV is full of lame, coddled, afraid of everything in the world, weaklings. It’s is a disgrace that schools shut down - after many months of lost in person time - to rain. Did the person calling the shots not walk outside at 7:05? It was mild - 40 easy - and raining. Pathetic.

And just last week it was raining until it was snowing - hard. Local officials are a bit gun shy right now.

Can't have Larla stuck on a bus somewhere!

It doesn’t take a meteorologist to know that for the small amount of snow forecast, even if it did turn to snow early enough to get the 1-2 inches, it was not going to stick that much given the warm ground. Totally different situation from last week.

Um - "it was not going to stick that much given the warm ground."

Holy short-term memory, Batman! It was mid-60s the day before Virginia had their 24 hour traffic jam last week.

Didn't they get over a foot of snow?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Explain how this makes sense- Our school was supposed to start virtual today due to covid through the 28th. In actuality today was supposed to be teacher planning day while kids do asynchronous learning; then zoom learning tomorrow.
So now I get this email that says because today is a snow day- planning day & asynchronous learning has been moved to tomorrow. And with Professional day on Monday, our kids won't do any real learning till Tuesday next week. What a load of crap. Why couldn't teachers plan today?

Incredible. This is what happens when an organization is working for its own interests instead of for its mission.

I am usually not the type of person to complain so much about MCPS and I've been very sympathetic to the challenges they've been facing lately but this angers me. Absolutely ridiculous.

I’m sure employment contracts address snow days. MCPS can’t just ask if these teachers will pretty please work today, even though they’re not required to, while the vast majority are off.

Or how about this- they could've just given the kids off today if they were so concerned about the snow but make all teachers work from home.

How exactly do you make people work from home if their contract says they have snow days off? How do you convince them to work today and any make up instructional day for today’s snow day, without any additional compensation? We have staffing shortages. We need to retain these employees.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This one was an LOL. They quite reasonably relied on the weather forecast and the forecast got it wrong. I’m not going to blame anyone for not being clairvoyant. Oh well.

No.
Wrong.
They are supposed to check the weather conditions at 5am. If it's NOT SNOWING they are supposed to have school.

If it STARTS SNOWING during the school day they are supposed to evaluate the roads and consider early release

This was completely inline with the inept way the district is being run.

Right, because an early release would be less risky, easier, and working parents would like that soo much more.

You have missed the point but I'm sure you're used to that.

THERE WOULDN'T HAVE BEEN AN EARLY RELEASE

No you have missed the point. People who have to actually make decisions and own them (not just be arm chair analyst after the fact) weigh a variety of factors and risk. One of which today would be, what happens if we keep the two hour delay, get everyone in school, only for it to start snowing and freezing? (Which is exactly what was forecasted to happened). In that situation, now they’ve increased the risk of accidents with kids on busses, increased the risk of kids getting stuck on busses or at school, and increased the risk of having to do an early dismissal right after a two delay.

We only need look at Virginia a week or two back or what happened in both NC and Atl a few years back to see what a cluster that could be.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The fact is they weather is unpredictable. But at 7 am it was already clear they the feared accumulation wasn’t going to happen. MCPS could have simply continued with a two-hit delay. They would have made sense given they made that call last night. But instead they made the silly decision to close. Why?

They're looking for COVID circuit breakers anywhere they can find them.

Yeah this is my problem with the call. Not that they issued the 2-hr delay yesterday based on (what we know now was) a faulty forecast. But then at 7 am, when forecasters had changed the prediction, and there obviously wasn't snow, they upgraded to closure instead of recognizing that even the 2-hr delay was probably unnecessary. That made no sense whatsoever and fuels the politics/conspiracy talk.

I don’t have a problem with it. It would be better if they could be transparent without getting death threats, but that’s not reality.

Great that you seem unperturbed. Not everyone is seeing it the same way and no one is getting death threats.

If you think that public officials, including the MCPS school board and administrators, are not receiving death threats related to their handling of COVID, all I can say is that you have your head deeply in the sand.

Stop making things up to distract from the massive incompetence of this school system.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Mcps has changed it to closed school

seems to me that MCPS leadership should be charged for fraud. Wednesday, was a warm day. for the 24 hours leading up to thursday morning the temps were high 30s to 40s. it was clear from the weather forecasts that we were getting rain non-freezing ground. there must be repercussions for closing school for fraudulent purposes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The DMV is full of lame, coddled, afraid of everything in the world, weaklings. It’s is a disgrace that schools shut down - after many months of lost in person time - to rain. Did the person calling the shots not walk outside at 7:05? It was mild - 40 easy - and raining. Pathetic.

And just last week it was raining until it was snowing - hard. Local officials are a bit gun shy right now.

Can't have Larla stuck on a bus somewhere!

It doesn’t take a meteorologist to know that for the small amount of snow forecast, even if it did turn to snow early enough to get the 1-2 inches, it was not going to stick that much given the warm ground. Totally different situation from last week.

Um - "it was not going to stick that much given the warm ground."

Holy short-term memory, Batman! It was mid-60s the day before Virginia had their 24 hour traffic jam last week.

You do realize that professional meteorologist also say it was the wrong decision. If you work for MCPS please be assured that your behavior is further undermining the credibility of this once great school district.
https://mobile.twitter.com/hbwx/status/1484143954048159747

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The fact is they weather is unpredictable. But at 7 am it was already clear they the feared accumulation wasn’t going to happen. MCPS could have simply continued with a two-hit delay. They would have made sense given they made that call last night. But instead they made the silly decision to close. Why?

They're looking for COVID circuit breakers anywhere they can find them.

Yeah this is my problem with the call. Not that they issued the 2-hr delay yesterday based on (what we know now was) a faulty forecast. But then at 7 am, when forecasters had changed the prediction, and there obviously wasn't snow, they upgraded to closure instead of recognizing that even the 2-hr delay was probably unnecessary. That made no sense whatsoever and fuels the politics/conspiracy talk.

I don’t have a problem with it. It would be better if they could be transparent without getting death threats, but that’s not reality.

Great that you seem unperturbed. Not everyone is seeing it the same way and no one is getting death threats.

If you think that public officials, including the MCPS school board and administrators, are not receiving death threats related to their handling of COVID, all I can say is that you have your head deeply in the sand.

Stop making things up to distract from the massive incompetence of this school system.

You are mistaken about the veracity of this claim. The incompetence is also real.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s absurd. At least make it an all virtual day like FCPS apparently has.

Yeah no

Seriously, why not? HS kids have lost so much instruction time and kids have major end of quarter tests today. If 16 schools are virtual anyway with no advanced notice, there is ZERO reason MCPS as a whole cannot be virtual today.

You are kidding right? Ask your HS student what they think of virtual. Most kids will log on but play games on the side, etc. Even college kids hate virtual.

News flash: Not all kids are like your kid. Our teen (and preteen) and their friends are fine with temporary virtual.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:so how come private schools can open on time? Please explain to me.

You're not actually this dumb, right?