How is MCPS determining red, yellow, green?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sorry, could someone help me.... I see the dashboard but all of the schools are listed in black and I don't see where people are getting the red/yellow/green.
Thanks!

The new red/yellow/green designations were mentioned in this morning's MCPS press conference. The list of red schools (going virtual tomorrow) was shared then. The list of 89 yellow schools has not been shared yet. The press conference said that additional information would be made available later today.

Hooooooooooooold all the way up.

89 schools = 43% of all MCPS schools

So 89 schools are in yellow?

And yellow means 3-5%?

And 11 schools flipped from (what would have been called) green/yellow to red in 2 days (1/1 to 1/3)?

Without schools even being open?

Tell me, how many of those 89 schools will stay yellow or go back down to green by the end of this week?

Any of them?

Or will the vast majority turn red?

For elementaries the difference between yellow and red should be between 1 additional case and 15 cases, but for most should be 5-10.

Do we think that a yellow ES will not find 5-10 more cases in the next few days, plus maybe a couple more to account to the cases that aged out?

What a farce. This is why my kid will not be going to school this week under any circumstances. I assume her school will turn "red" this week or next anyway.

This is a good analysis. Red plus yellow schools means half the district may be virtual soon.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There’s an updated document that they sent around a day or two days ago and will be updating with reports of positive cases.

That document shows not a single school even close to 5 percent. It was updated at 10pm on 1/1.

I'm not sure that's true, though again, it doesn't matter when we're dealing with such a small sample size.

Seneca Valley was at 76 cases for what can't be (?) more than 1400-1500 total school population, which means it was already at 5% unless I'm missing some huge population growth.

https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/regulatoryaccountability/glance/currentyear/schools/04104.pdf

Those are the numbers from the year before last, showing 1226 students and ~150 staff.

Even if the population is now more like 1600 total, they were at almost 5% on 1/1.

Who even knows anymore.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:From the press conference, they are looking at reported positives from the last 4 days among total school population.
Green <3%
Yellow 3-5%
Red >5%

List to be updated by 7pm each day.

(And of course they can't post that before the press conference - people would flip out with no explanation to go with it. They'll still flip out, but at least there is context now.)

Just how are they doing this? For instance my Title One school has many nonEnglish speaking parents. Are they getting all the info in how to report, testing, etc? We had many +s prior to break. Why so many upcountry schools?

Probably because they're smaller and possibly because they're smaller they were able to test everyone.

Ita re non-English speakers. How are they disseminating this information to them?

MCPS routinely manages to communicate with non-English speakers.

Im aware, it's just a lot of languages to translate their guidance into in a short amount of time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sorry, could someone help me.... I see the dashboard but all of the schools are listed in black and I don't see where people are getting the red/yellow/green.
Thanks!

The new red/yellow/green designations were mentioned in this morning's MCPS press conference. The list of red schools (going virtual tomorrow) was shared then. The list of 89 yellow schools has not been shared yet. The press conference said that additional information would be made available later today.

Hooooooooooooold all the way up.

89 schools = 43% of all MCPS schools

So 89 schools are in yellow?

And yellow means 3-5%?

And 11 schools flipped from (what would have been called) green/yellow to red in 2 days (1/1 to 1/3)?

Without schools even being open?

Tell me, how many of those 89 schools will stay yellow or go back down to green by the end of this week?

Any of them?

Or will the vast majority turn red?

For elementaries the difference between yellow and red should be between 1 additional case and 15 cases, but for most should be 5-10.

Do we think that a yellow ES will not find 5-10 more cases in the next few days, plus maybe a couple more to account to the cases that aged out?

What a farce. This is why my kid will not be going to school this week under any circumstances. I assume her school will turn "red" this week or next anyway.

This is a good analysis. Red plus yellow schools means half the district may be virtual soon.

If you account for how many people haven't reported yet, had access to a test yet...even more. Once the county gets ahold of passing out the rapid test to staff/students be prepared for that to go way up.

[Anonymous]

The biggest concern I have is how can we know when people can't test?

To be testing for covid in these times you need to have a car, you need to have access to a testing site, (and they all require appointments, I believe now--even the county clinics), in some cases you need to pay.

For the instant tests, you need to be able to FIND one.

So that's time. That's transportation. That's money. Add in multiple kids in a family, multiple schools the kids attend. Add in parents who can't take time off work (even if sick themselves).

Our entire system is so untenable. If we were accurately measuring these metrics that would be good. But we are not

[Anonymous]

Note that hitting that 5% "red" threshold doesn't automatically mean closure, it just means that virtual will be considered for that school.

"Red" just means they've hit 5% total, which triggers the health department to begin discussions with the school system. MCPS and the county health department will work together decide whether the cases are widespread enough to send the whole school virtual, or if they can contain it by quarantining a class or shutting down an athletic team, for example.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sorry, could someone help me.... I see the dashboard but all of the schools are listed in black and I don't see where people are getting the red/yellow/green.
Thanks!

The dashboard hasn't been updated since 12/21. (source - the dashboard)
They collected data and used date for the past 4 days (source - reported upthread based on press conference)
There will be updates to dashboard reporting soon (source - MCPS employee)

Agree with a PP upthread that they are waiting to update until after the press conference so there is context

The positives must have been reported in the past 4 days? Are we really to believe they are seeing that many + cases in 4 days? If so my guess would be from staff calling in sick.

We reported our kids’ positives yesterday when we got the test results.

Why? Honestly why? Your kid didn’t catch it at school and is presumably not returning this week. So why would you add another log to the fire supporting virtual?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sorry, could someone help me.... I see the dashboard but all of the schools are listed in black and I don't see where people are getting the red/yellow/green.
Thanks!

The dashboard hasn't been updated since 12/21. (source - the dashboard)
They collected data and used date for the past 4 days (source - reported upthread based on press conference)
There will be updates to dashboard reporting soon (source - MCPS employee)

Agree with a PP upthread that they are waiting to update until after the press conference so there is context

The positives must have been reported in the past 4 days? Are we really to believe they are seeing that many + cases in 4 days? If so my guess would be from staff calling in sick.

We reported our kids’ positives yesterday when we got the test results.

Why? Honestly why? Your kid didn’t catch it at school and is presumably not returning this week. So why would you add another log to the fire supporting virtual?

Because it's her civic duty, you pathetic red-state, grifting, sociopathic piece of trash.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sorry, could someone help me.... I see the dashboard but all of the schools are listed in black and I don't see where people are getting the red/yellow/green.
Thanks!

The dashboard hasn't been updated since 12/21. (source - the dashboard)
They collected data and used date for the past 4 days (source - reported upthread based on press conference)
There will be updates to dashboard reporting soon (source - MCPS employee)

Agree with a PP upthread that they are waiting to update until after the press conference so there is context

The positives must have been reported in the past 4 days? Are we really to believe they are seeing that many + cases in 4 days? If so my guess would be from staff calling in sick.

We reported our kids’ positives yesterday when we got the test results.

Why? Honestly why? Your kid didn’t catch it at school and is presumably not returning this week. So why would you add another log to the fire supporting virtual?

Because my kids have COVID and I don’t want them to spread it. They are going to be in virtual classes until they are through the isolation period.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Note that hitting that 5% "red" threshold doesn't automatically mean closure, it just means that virtual will be considered for that school.

"Red" just means they've hit 5% total, which triggers the health department to begin discussions with the school system. MCPS and the county health department will work together decide whether the cases are widespread enough to send the whole school virtual, or if they can contain it by quarantining a class or shutting down an athletic team, for example.

Considering that all red schools are now virtual, I'm thinking it's more of an automatic closure than they're admitting.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:From the press conference, they are looking at reported positives from the last 4 days among total school population.
Green <3%
Yellow 3-5%
Red >5%

List to be updated by 7pm each day.

(And of course they can't post that before the press conference - people would flip out with no explanation to go with it. They'll still flip out, but at least there is context now.)

Eventually every school will be red. You can’t control community spread by just moving schools to virtual when every single thing is open. Malls, movie theaters, hair salons, restaurants, bars, gyms, travel.. clearly education is not a priority in this country. Money trumps everything.

Yes-- there ought to be a policy/order/law that says that schools can't close until bars and gyms do.

[Anonymous]

Why are we the only county implementing this system? Either proceed with school or have the entire county go virtual for a determined amount of time. Now we're stuck in this endless cycle of will we or won't we go virtual. The decisionmaking in this county astounds me at every turn.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why are we the only county implementing this system? Either proceed with school or have the entire county go virtual for a determined amount of time. Now we're stuck in this endless cycle of will we or won't we go virtual. The decisionmaking in this county astounds me at every turn.

I know, right? MCPS taking a leadership position? What's Dr McKnight thinking?!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why are we the only county implementing this system? Either proceed with school or have the entire county go virtual for a determined amount of time. Now we're stuck in this endless cycle of will we or won't we go virtual. The decisionmaking in this county astounds me at every turn.

I know, right? MCPS taking a leadership position? What's Dr McKnight thinking?!

How is this leadership?!? No other county in the COUNTRY is taking a color-coded approach based on what is likely unreliable, self-reported data. What we should be doing is focusing our efforts on test to return (not test AFTER we return); addressing staffing shortages; and figuring out how to keep our schools open for what is essentially a mild virus.

[Anonymous]

So are they going to make the yellow/green designations public? I’ve seen conflicting info just on this site.