MCPS closing/delaying on Monday?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Nothing is stopping any of you from getting out there and clearing those school grounds. Take your kids with you since they’ll be home for a while 😉.

You are an idiot. People pay taxes for a reason.

[Anonymous]

Looks like constant heavyish snow until evening and tomorrow temperature should be in the teens. I for one would not mind tomorrow being another snow day.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Looks like constant heavyish snow until evening and tomorrow temperature should be in the teens. I for one would not mind tomorrow being another snow day.

(With wind chill)

[Anonymous]

Uh, regardless of any snow hole or whatever, Tuesday is definitely going to be off in MCPS and FCPS, and likely Wednesday too. You have to look at it like Tuesday is the first day to clear, seeing as how snow ends Monday night and grounds crews don't work overnight.

Honestly, I'm fine with it because I can WFH and I am happy for my teen to get any break they can, they work pretty hard. I understand it's hard for WOH parents or those with little kids.

[Anonymous]

There are more heavy snow bands coming in tonight. Wind gusts to 35mph tomorrow. Thursday on time at the earliest.

[Anonymous]

Quit complaining people. Let your kids enjoy the unexpected days off. If I worked for MCPS, I would read this thread for a laugh and then completely ignore it

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Okay so the forecast looks pretty clear on sizeable snowfall starting late Sunday into Monday. This is a clearly going to have a snow day scenario IMO. When will MCPS announce that? This afternoon? This evening? Tomorrow morning?

They will call by 8pm tonight
Cancelled

Call at 8pm tomorrow night
Cancelled for Tues

Call at 5am Wed
Cancelled for Wednesday

Call at 5am Thurs
2hr delay on Thursday

lol. Sorry, you're going to have to go to work before that!

Not a teacher and I work from home. My youngest of 4 is a sophomore and I know MCPS. They won’t even begin to shovel out schools until mid day Tuesday and the school parking lots and walkways will not be done and treated by Wednesday morning. It will easily be 3 days off

Mid-day Tuesday leaves plenty of time to clear parking lots and walkways by Wednesday morning.

I think we'll find that last January's failure was a wake-up call to MCPS admin. It was very unusual for the county to publicly call out MCPS's BS about the response to that storm. As screwed up as MCPS is, they must have made changes after that. I don't think we'll see a repeat.

MCPS never makes changes and there has never been a storm of a foot of snow and ice where schools weren’t closed for 3 days. If it was ending early Monday, maybe but the warning ends 1am Tuesday. If you all think the county will have 200+ school parking lots, bus lots, and walkways all cleared and treated in less than 24hrs, you are delusional.

I think there are some posters on this thread who aren’t aware of how much work there is to do (bus lots, parking lots, sidewalks, damage to school buildings, heating concerns, pipes, access roads, etc.).

They also aren’t aware of staffing issues, and that there isn’t an army of people at the ready to prepare all of these schools.

So to them, this is easy.

But you see, they don’t CARE. Their KIDS have been HOME for TWO WEEKS (insert dramatic gasp here).

MCPS has 25,000 employees, including 1500 building services employees. Do they disappear when it snows?

What does this even mean?

It means that, on average, each school has 6 or 7 employees, some of whom work part time and/or the evening shifts and have other jobs in the morning so they aren't available to help out with clearing in the morning.

That's incredibly poor planning if the people the school has hired to, in part, do snow removal aren't actually available when snow removal would be needed most.

Is that true? They don't expect building services workers to be available to work in the morning?

A lot of things of come out in this thread suggesting there are some very basic steps MCPS can take to make things significantlt better:

1) Ensure building services workers are available to work at ~5am during winter months.

2) Budget overtime for building services workers to do snow removal.

3) Allow building services to begin clearing sidewalks around schools before parking lots are cleared..

I'm guessing those aren't problems at all schools, but it sounds like different schools have some combination of those problems.

Yes to all this but not with my tax dollars! I don't want to pay people to prepare for events that might not even happen!

Most "preparation" is for things that might not happen. But we have a pretty good idea that it will usually snow each year. It would be poor planning to not account for that.

Just as it is poor planning when parents don’t have snow day plans for their children. They know this is a possibility every winter and yet they scream into the void that is dcum when schools close.

Sure, but it's fair to expect that schools get back up and running within a reasonable period of time. It starts to get a bit ridiculous when most adults are expected back at the workplace but schools are still closed for multiple additional days.

Yes, this is how it felt during last year's snow storm. Everyone else was back at work all day on Wednesday including the child care providers that work in the schools. They literally had all day, they have staff that are being paid for this and there was still a delay on Thursday.

[Anonymous]

Everyone needs to get a grip. No amount of vitriol here will change what day the kids go back to school. I realize some of you think this is fun...but sheesh, go play in the snow with your kid(s). And don't tell me you have to work, you're here, so clearly not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Everyone needs to get a grip. No amount of vitriol here will change what day the kids go back to school. I realize some of you think this is fun...but sheesh, go play in the snow with your kid(s). And don't tell me you have to work, you're here, so clearly not.

It's 8:09am, ma'am. And this is an Arby's. Some of us have zoom meetings later.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Everyone needs to get a grip. No amount of vitriol here will change what day the kids go back to school. I realize some of you think this is fun...but sheesh, go play in the snow with your kid(s). And don't tell me you have to work, you're here, so clearly not.

I think most people here understand today's closure. Many also get why tomorrow will be closed. But they should be able to open on Wednesday, yet they probably won't. Hopefully the childcare providers will be allowed to open on Wednesday.

It is not just that people have to work. As someone else mentioned, kids with disabilities are not getting services while schools are closed. For us it meant a big delay in something my kid really needed because of the availability of the psychologist. I wasn't angry (that was a necessary closure) but please stop pretending this doesn't really affect anyone. Nearly half of MCPS students receive FARMS - do you really think their parents still get paid when they have to take off work?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Nothing is stopping any of you from getting out there and clearing those school grounds. Take your kids with you since they’ll be home for a while 😉.

You are an idiot. People pay taxes for a reason.

Cool story. Kids will still be home.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Looks like constant heavyish snow until evening and tomorrow temperature should be in the teens. I for one would not mind tomorrow being another snow day.

It will be!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Everyone needs to get a grip. No amount of vitriol here will change what day the kids go back to school. I realize some of you think this is fun...but sheesh, go play in the snow with your kid(s). And don't tell me you have to work, you're here, so clearly not.

I think most people here understand today's closure. Many also get why tomorrow will be closed. But they should be able to open on Wednesday, yet they probably won't. Hopefully the childcare providers will be allowed to open on Wednesday.

It is not just that people have to work. As someone else mentioned, kids with disabilities are not getting services while schools are closed. For us it meant a big delay in something my kid really needed because of the availability of the psychologist. I wasn't angry (that was a necessary closure) but please stop pretending this doesn't really affect anyone. Nearly half of MCPS students receive FARMS - do you really think their parents still get paid when they have to take off work?

They need to plan like the rest of us, sorry.

[Anonymous]

I bet 2hr delay/no school Wednesday.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Just putting out there because we’re right in the midst of the big boundary study coming up… this is exactly why we need neighborhood schools. If everyone can walk to school, how long it takes to plow becomes less relevant.

I also wish that there could be some separation where some schools could open with others still working towards it….

But most MCPS employees don’t work at schools in the same neighborhood where they live, and schools can’t open without being staffed. Furthermore, if almost all students are expected to walk, sidewalks will need to be safe, which means you’re relying even more on the citizens of MoCo to clear and/or salt the sidewalks abutting their properties. I don’t know about you, but I definitely have neighbors who don’t adhere to snow removal ordinances.

I'm sorry, but some of you need to adjust your threshold over sidewalk "safety." Get your kids some boots and tell them to walk slow if needed. There are pleny of kids all over the northern parts of th US that trudge to the bus stop/school on icy sidewalks all winter long. And YES, I know that some of these places have sidewalk plows (I grew up in one of them) but honestly the plows just remove the top bits and then the lower layer ices over. Unless you truly scrape down to pavement and there's no daily melt/refreeze from adjacent areas, it's just the way it is.

You are wasting your (incessant) keystrokes. Schools will close no matter how much you complain. Cope.

For how long? Until kids can walk on dry sidewalks in sneakers all the way to school?