Virtual Learning - Why Not MCPS?

[Anonymous]

Alexandria City Public Schools over in VA has been virtual learning since Wednesday, will continue today and tomorrow as well. This wasn’t hard to plan, the news of the impact of this storm were everywhere. I don’t know how effective virtual learning is but at least those kids have a structure to their day and are following lesson plans. It’s inexcusable that MCPS couldn’t foresee this happening.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Man, I know that there are some pandemic-era parents whose kids had a hard time and are kind of scarre from those days, but can y'all try to step back and be rational rather than react emotionally from a "I hated the COVID year" place? The rest of us are tired of our kids losing multiple days of education every year due to snow days and would like our kids to actually get some learning in rather than those useless last few days of school. We get it, not all kids learn well online, but you guys act like it's the end of the world .. pretty clearly some kind of trauma response, and again, I get it, but fake a breath and try to move through it.

You must be an online learner as you've failed to read this thread where it has been pointed out that:

1) Virtual learning didn't just fail during the pandemic. It also failed during summer school, which is why MCPS is dramatically scaling back on virtual summer school options this year
2) It tried to do an asynchronous learning day in the 2023-2024 school year. It went so poorly the state said MCPS cannot pivot to virtual instruction again with a robust, pressure tested, approved plan and structure to do so.

Insisting MCPS should do something, despite multiple failed attempts at doing so, just because you want them to is definitely a trauma response on your part. Or maybe it's just ignorance. I don't know. But you need to look in the mirror before you start psychoanalyzing anyone else.

Oh come on, you can't point to the asynchronous day two years ago as evidence virtual learning doesn't work. It was pretty clear it was supposed to work the same as the half-days in June, going through the motions of trying to count it as a day when it wasn't really going to be one. In our ES they just printed out a few worksheets and called it a day. Not at all comparable to teachers actually teaching regular lessons live over a computer.

Agree. And virtual learning did not fail all or most students in the summer. It failed the ones who had already failed courses and couldn’t be bothered to log on to do their credit recovery to get to graduation. Are we supposed to eliminate an entire option because our least engaged students, who are often chronic absentees for a variety of reasons, might not log on during a snow day?

Your privilege is showing. Your vacation is not more important than kids' education.

So you want us to go until the end of June because you think the kids who won’t log on to virtual will definitely show up in late June for meaningful education? My kids learned plenty during virtual. They did not learn anything during those silly June days tacked on last year, where grades were already turned in and teachers literally told kids not to come. I totally value education and I don’t have a vacation planned. I’m literally coming at this thinking more can be taught now than later.

You keep comparing some idealized notion of virtual learning against the worst possible implementation of make-up days. Add full days, and use the ones earlier in the calendar.

Yes you can live in la la land, but MCPS prefers to add half days in end June when all chance for meaningful instruction has gone. Look what they did last year.

And look at how they've done virtual. No meaningful instruction there.

If we need to push for higher expectations somewhere, I think higher expectations for in-person make-up days are much more likely to yield a productive outcome. Full days on March 20, April 15, and June 18 is the natural way to do that.

[Anonymous]

Virtual instruction might as well be teachers putting questions directly into ChatGPT and cutting out the middleman of having the students do it.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:The pro-virtual learning people just need to admit that they have anxiety about not seeing their kids doing SOMETHING that looks academic.

They don't care if the worksheets are busy work that doesn't lead to genuine learning.

They don't care if the kids' eyes glaze over from staring at the screen on Zoom for hours at a time.

Forcing their kids to perform school-like activities is more important than impact and outcome.

I disagree, obviously, but those parents should be honest that their panic is more about assuaging their own anxieties and not their kids' development and well-being.

It’s unfortunate you don’t prioritize academics. This is why kids are failing and struggling.

I prioritize GENUINE and EFFECTIVE instruction and learning. Which data thus far says happens best with in-person, face-to-face instruction.

Synthetic, virtual “learning” is not real education. It’s a crude imitation that yields weak academic results at best, and many emotional and developmental harms at worst.

Snow day virtual learning doesn't need to be comparitive to a real full day of instruction. It need to be compared to the alternative of a day tacked on to the end of the school year, which is notoriously just a daycare day. Both are subpar to a true instructional day, but those are the options for make up currently. So those are the options to compare and decide between.

There is another option though which I think is superior. Begin the school year earlier in August (no sense in adding those days on at the end of the year since time prior to state testing and AP testing is more useful). Then we can keep our breaks and have built in snow days, plus the students will have less of a gap in learning. 7 weeks of summer vacation is enough.

I don’t think you’re gonna have a lot of company in supporting a 7 week summer. In Georgia and other places that start in early August, students finish before Memorial Day.

Students in McPS currently have a 9 week summer vacation. In nearby Virginia, FCPS starts a week earlier in August, has more snow days built into the calendar, celebrates similar holidays as MCPS and its community didn’t die of horror over having 8 weeks of summer vacation.

Or you just accept that your child is unlikely to get 180 full days of school per year as required because even next year, MCPS only put 1 snow day into the calendar.

Parents in FCPS hate that calendar. It's full of 1-2 off days that are disruptive. Like MCPS but worse. I posted this elsewhere, but Baltimore City, subject to the same mandates as us, goes from 8/25 - 6/13 this year.

I am a FCPS parent and I like the calendar, my kids get a proper 2 week winter break, plenty of days off during school year to recharge and don’t have to worry about snow days.8 weeks of summer is plenty for us, I hope they continue the same way.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Man, I know that there are some pandemic-era parents whose kids had a hard time and are kind of scarre from those days, but can y'all try to step back and be rational rather than react emotionally from a "I hated the COVID year" place? The rest of us are tired of our kids losing multiple days of education every year due to snow days and would like our kids to actually get some learning in rather than those useless last few days of school. We get it, not all kids learn well online, but you guys act like it's the end of the world .. pretty clearly some kind of trauma response, and again, I get it, but fake a breath and try to move through it.

You must be an online learner as you've failed to read this thread where it has been pointed out that:

1) Virtual learning didn't just fail during the pandemic. It also failed during summer school, which is why MCPS is dramatically scaling back on virtual summer school options this year
2) It tried to do an asynchronous learning day in the 2023-2024 school year. It went so poorly the state said MCPS cannot pivot to virtual instruction again with a robust, pressure tested, approved plan and structure to do so.

Insisting MCPS should do something, despite multiple failed attempts at doing so, just because you want them to is definitely a trauma response on your part. Or maybe it's just ignorance. I don't know. But you need to look in the mirror before you start psychoanalyzing anyone else.

Oh come on, you can't point to the asynchronous day two years ago as evidence virtual learning doesn't work. It was pretty clear it was supposed to work the same as the half-days in June, going through the motions of trying to count it as a day when it wasn't really going to be one. In our ES they just printed out a few worksheets and called it a day. Not at all comparable to teachers actually teaching regular lessons live over a computer.

Agree. And virtual learning did not fail all or most students in the summer. It failed the ones who had already failed courses and couldn’t be bothered to log on to do their credit recovery to get to graduation. Are we supposed to eliminate an entire option because our least engaged students, who are often chronic absentees for a variety of reasons, might not log on during a snow day?

Your privilege is showing. Your vacation is not more important than kids' education.

So you want us to go until the end of June because you think the kids who won’t log on to virtual will definitely show up in late June for meaningful education? My kids learned plenty during virtual. They did not learn anything during those silly June days tacked on last year, where grades were already turned in and teachers literally told kids not to come. I totally value education and I don’t have a vacation planned. I’m literally coming at this thinking more can be taught now than later.

You keep comparing some idealized notion of virtual learning against the worst possible implementation of make-up days. Add full days, and use the ones earlier in the calendar.

Yes you can live in la la land, but MCPS prefers to add half days in end June when all chance for meaningful instruction has gone. Look what they did last year.

And look at how they've done virtual. No meaningful instruction there.

If we need to push for higher expectations somewhere, I think higher expectations for in-person make-up days are much more likely to yield a productive outcome. Full days on March 20, April 15, and June 18 is the natural way to do that.

What school did your kids attend such that your kids received no meaningful instruction? My kids learned through nearly a year of online learning and learned a lot from excellent teachers. They learn more in person, but it makes no sense to deny kids an education because your kids had a bad experience or because you are a lazy teacher who rather do nothing than teach.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:So much debate about something that is already settled in the law. They can’t do virtual learning because they never submitted a plan to the state, because they didn’t think it would work. It’s over.

Other Maryland school districts did. Anne Arundel, Baltimore in Maryland are doing virtual today.

Alexandria is doing virtual learning now too. DCPS did virtual yesterday and is in person today.

It’s just MCPS with its billion dollar budget that could take a field trip to Baltimore and Anne Arundel and learn how to submit a virtual learning plan and include more than 1 snow day in its calendar from its peers.

If they do so, they should talk to a broad set of students and parents. Include younger kids with working parents. Include lower socioeconomic demographic groups. Include students with special needs. Find out how much new material was taught, and how many students needed it retaught later.

I know how much new material my MCPS kid was taught this week. Absolutely nothing. My kids were online during the pandemic and learned a lot. Would I have rather have had them in in person school? of course. But their teachers are professionals and they learned math, spelling and reading comprehension with their teachers.


And when your kids are in MS and HS, online learning is very easy to do. They use their Chromebooks a lot in the classes anyway.

MCPS was negligent to not have submitted a virtual learning plan to the state the way Anne Arundel and Baltimore did.

In-person school is an option. On March 20, April 15, and June 18. If you agree in-person is better, then let's use them! Not all kids are in MS or HS. Not all kids can learn without classroom supports and services.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Man, I know that there are some pandemic-era parents whose kids had a hard time and are kind of scarre from those days, but can y'all try to step back and be rational rather than react emotionally from a "I hated the COVID year" place? The rest of us are tired of our kids losing multiple days of education every year due to snow days and would like our kids to actually get some learning in rather than those useless last few days of school. We get it, not all kids learn well online, but you guys act like it's the end of the world .. pretty clearly some kind of trauma response, and again, I get it, but fake a breath and try to move through it.

You must be an online learner as you've failed to read this thread where it has been pointed out that:

1) Virtual learning didn't just fail during the pandemic. It also failed during summer school, which is why MCPS is dramatically scaling back on virtual summer school options this year
2) It tried to do an asynchronous learning day in the 2023-2024 school year. It went so poorly the state said MCPS cannot pivot to virtual instruction again with a robust, pressure tested, approved plan and structure to do so.

Insisting MCPS should do something, despite multiple failed attempts at doing so, just because you want them to is definitely a trauma response on your part. Or maybe it's just ignorance. I don't know. But you need to look in the mirror before you start psychoanalyzing anyone else.

Oh come on, you can't point to the asynchronous day two years ago as evidence virtual learning doesn't work. It was pretty clear it was supposed to work the same as the half-days in June, going through the motions of trying to count it as a day when it wasn't really going to be one. In our ES they just printed out a few worksheets and called it a day. Not at all comparable to teachers actually teaching regular lessons live over a computer.

Agree. And virtual learning did not fail all or most students in the summer. It failed the ones who had already failed courses and couldn’t be bothered to log on to do their credit recovery to get to graduation. Are we supposed to eliminate an entire option because our least engaged students, who are often chronic absentees for a variety of reasons, might not log on during a snow day?

Your privilege is showing. Your vacation is not more important than kids' education.

So you want us to go until the end of June because you think the kids who won’t log on to virtual will definitely show up in late June for meaningful education? My kids learned plenty during virtual. They did not learn anything during those silly June days tacked on last year, where grades were already turned in and teachers literally told kids not to come. I totally value education and I don’t have a vacation planned. I’m literally coming at this thinking more can be taught now than later.

You keep comparing some idealized notion of virtual learning against the worst possible implementation of make-up days. Add full days, and use the ones earlier in the calendar.

Yes you can live in la la land, but MCPS prefers to add half days in end June when all chance for meaningful instruction has gone. Look what they did last year.

And look at how they've done virtual. No meaningful instruction there.

If we need to push for higher expectations somewhere, I think higher expectations for in-person make-up days are much more likely to yield a productive outcome. Full days on March 20, April 15, and June 18 is the natural way to do that.

What school did your kids attend such that your kids received no meaningful instruction? My kids learned through nearly a year of online learning and learned a lot from excellent teachers. They learn more in person, but it makes no sense to deny kids an education because your kids had a bad experience or because you are a lazy teacher who rather do nothing than teach.

My first kid started in MCPS mid-year when they were doing the awful hybrid schedule. We got the chromebook from the school, but his teacher shortly later told us not to bother to even try to log in.

A couple years ago, when we had the "asynchronous" day, neither of my kids' teachers sent out anything. Not even an acknowledgment that something was supposed to happen.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:A few reasons:

State doesn’t allow virtual days to count as part of the minimum 180 day requirement.

Only HS students have individual chromebooks. Most MS and ES schools have Chromebooks on carts and cannot be taken home. The software is not set up for it.

Something, something equity.

It does if school districts submit a virtual learning plan in advance, but MCPS opted not to submit one for this year.

I can’t understand why they didn’t. It just does not make any sense to me that when a viable back up plan is available why it would not be utilized.

Is this a decision the superintendent, board of Education, or teachers union make?

It's not that complicated. We all know virtual doesn't work well for many students and families. And teachers don't have lesson plans for it.

News flash - teachers just minimally adapt their stuff for virtual. Especially when it is just for a few days. Heck, ChatGPT will modify your plans for you in seconds. Teachers are not recreating everything from scratch. Ask me how I know

Thanks for demonstrating why virtual lessons would be awful.

[Anonymous]

Bet they will slap 2 half days in June like last year. MCPS is bloated and too rich and this is a problem now. Instead of being creative with solutions they want to throw money and snowday closures when they can. Limited resources motivate, 3.6 billion budget corrupts.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Bet they will slap 2 half days in June like last year. MCPS is bloated and too rich and this is a problem now. Instead of being creative with solutions they want to throw money and snowday closures when they can. Limited resources motivate, 3.6 billion budget corrupts.

We don't need creativity. We just need them to implement the plan in the calendar sensibly.

"If the school year is disrupted by emergencies and schools are closed three or more days, dates identified as possible make-up instructional days include: October 17 and November 3, 2025; January 26, March 20, April 15, June 18..."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Alexandria City Public Schools over in VA has been virtual learning since Wednesday, will continue today and tomorrow as well. This wasn’t hard to plan, the news of the impact of this storm were everywhere. I don’t know how effective virtual learning is but at least those kids have a structure to their day and are following lesson plans. It’s inexcusable that MCPS couldn’t foresee this happening.

r

Virginia also Counts hours in school over days. Loved when they extended the school day after the ‘08 recession to have less days in school buildings as a way to save money. I was able to get an extended maternity leave

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A few reasons:

State doesn’t allow virtual days to count as part of the minimum 180 day requirement.

Only HS students have individual chromebooks. Most MS and ES schools have Chromebooks on carts and cannot be taken home. The software is not set up for it.

Something, something equity.

It does if school districts submit a virtual learning plan in advance, but MCPS opted not to submit one for this year.

I can’t understand why they didn’t. It just does not make any sense to me that when a viable back up plan is available why it would not be utilized.

Is this a decision the superintendent, board of Education, or teachers union make?

It's not that complicated. We all know virtual doesn't work well for many students and families. And teachers don't have lesson plans for it.

News flash - teachers just minimally adapt their stuff for virtual. Especially when it is just for a few days. Heck, ChatGPT will modify your plans for you in seconds. Teachers are not recreating everything from scratch. Ask me how I know

Thanks for demonstrating why virtual lessons would be awful.

My kids did a year of virtual learning during Covid. Was it at times awful and ill suited to that age group. Yes occasionally, but I’m sure in person school has its awful moments too.
My kid learned a lot that year and I’m grateful to the teachers who helped them.

They’d be happy to have virtual learning during these snow days rather than poking around Canvas to try to find something they can progress on now that we’ve had 4 straight weekdays of no instruction. They’re older now and so much of their assignments and classroom work involves the Chromebook anyway. Virtual learning would be not too dissimilar.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Alexandria City Public Schools over in VA has been virtual learning since Wednesday, will continue today and tomorrow as well. This wasn’t hard to plan, the news of the impact of this storm were everywhere. I don’t know how effective virtual learning is but at least those kids have a structure to their day and are following lesson plans. It’s inexcusable that MCPS couldn’t foresee this happening.

r

Virginia also Counts hours in school over days. Loved when they extended the school day after the ‘08 recession to have less days in school buildings as a way to save money. I was able to get an extended maternity leave

Baltimore and Anne Arundel also had virtual learning today and will have it tomorrow so it’s not like Maryland schools aren’t using virtual learning. They’ve used up their three snow days and automatically virtual learning kicks in due to their policy. Far less drama than “do nothing” McPS

[Anonymous]

MCPS doesn’t care about educating your kids. Accept it.

If you can send your kids elsewhere, do it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:MCPS doesn’t care about educating your kids. Accept it.

If you can send your kids elsewhere, do it.

Your experience and opinions aren’t universal. I think my kids’ MCPS teachers for the most part have been very good.

MCPS central office on the other hand would probably function better if someone replaced it with an AI planning software. And AI planning software isn’t great either so that’s a big insult.