Why can’t some schools open?

[Anonymous]

I would support splitting MCPS into upcounty and down county districts but that would have to be a state level decision that will never be made.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Have you been outside, OP? I have and I don't understand how anyone thinks MCPS should have school tomorrow. I don't buy that 80% of staff can't make it in (come on). Anyone with a car can make it. If you chose not to clear the ice off your car on Sunday night that's on you. The main roads are fine, but there are still some issues for buses and the sidewalks are a complete mess. In our neighborhood a lot of grandparents take kids to school and/or pick them up. It is truly not safe for the elderly, younger kids or people with mobility issues.

+1 There is absolutely no way the high school kids in our area could walk the 2 miles to the high school without risking their lives walking in the street. especially since the main roads don't have all of the lanes clear and very few turn lanes are ice free. Plus there are numerous cars still in the streets covered in ice. I could drive my kids to school, but school buses would have a tough time in current conditions. The schools can only control so much.

Go for a walk. I'd be shocked if your sidewalk wasn't full of kids' and dogwalkers' footsteps. Post a picture.

Whether someone has walked in front of my house is a different question than whether you expect high school aged kids to cross a multi-lane street and then be required to either scale an 8 foot snow bank or walk in the street to get to school while competing with the car drop offs for 2000 kids. The car line on a normal morning makes me question the future of humanity because parent drivers make selfish, dumb driving decisions to save themselves 30 seconds.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would support splitting MCPS into upcounty and down county districts but that would have to be a state level decision that will never be made.

PA/BCPS poster and that's what BCPS did. They had a "harford" zone even though still technically covered by BCPS that made their own snow decisions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would support splitting MCPS into upcounty and down county districts but that would have to be a state level decision that will never be made.

It still wouldn’t fix the issue because you still have to figure out how to get teachers and staff from their affordable homes elsewhere to your HCOL area school on a snow day.

[Anonymous]

I'm not sure how you solve the special ed issue in particular. Programs like immersion and magnet are nice extras but are not legally mandated, nor is any transportation to them. Not so for special education. Both the programming and the door-to-door transportation is legally required to be provided by MCPS.

Schools like RICA, Longview, Stephen Knolls, Rock Terrace, and Carl Sandburg have only one location in the county and pull students from the entire county. To duplicate these schools in multiple locations is extremely expensive and probably impossible to staff. To eliminate them would cost the county even more as every student there is extremely high needs and would have to go to a non-public placement like Ivymount or Sheppard-Pratt or even residential schools like Benedictine and possibly with aides. Add in all the related services they'd need (PT/OT/SLP/counseling) and it gets extremely expensive to outsource.

Then there are the programs that pull across an entire quad cluster or multiple clusters, like Extensions or Connections or Learning Center. They may be pulling kids from Rockville to Poolesville to one school. Smaller town districts don't have this diversity of programs, so those kids either don't get anything or the district spends a bunch on out-of-district and private placements for those kids.

You can't just say "Candlewood ES is open, except for the Extensions program which is closed." That's a violation of FAPE. You also can't say, "Candlewood ES is open and so is Extensions but too bad so sad there's no busing for Larlo and Carlo because their neighborhoods aren't cleared, get here if you can." Also a violation of the IEP.

Maybe if the district had never been set up like this in the first place, there would be more obvious solutions. But once it is this way, unwinding it and taking away stuff from special ed students is very fraught. I feel like every other issue could be solved and they can just get rid of magnet and immersion if everybody wants to prioritize weather zones, but I don't see how you get around the special ed problem with how things are currently set up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm not sure how you solve the special ed issue in particular. Programs like immersion and magnet are nice extras but are not legally mandated, nor is any transportation to them. Not so for special education. Both the programming and the door-to-door transportation is legally required to be provided by MCPS.

Schools like RICA, Longview, Stephen Knolls, Rock Terrace, and Carl Sandburg have only one location in the county and pull students from the entire county. To duplicate these schools in multiple locations is extremely expensive and probably impossible to staff. To eliminate them would cost the county even more as every student there is extremely high needs and would have to go to a non-public placement like Ivymount or Sheppard-Pratt or even residential schools like Benedictine and possibly with aides. Add in all the related services they'd need (PT/OT/SLP/counseling) and it gets extremely expensive to outsource.

Then there are the programs that pull across an entire quad cluster or multiple clusters, like Extensions or Connections or Learning Center. They may be pulling kids from Rockville to Poolesville to one school. Smaller town districts don't have this diversity of programs, so those kids either don't get anything or the district spends a bunch on out-of-district and private placements for those kids.

You can't just say "Candlewood ES is open, except for the Extensions program which is closed." That's a violation of FAPE. You also can't say, "Candlewood ES is open and so is Extensions but too bad so sad there's no busing for Larlo and Carlo because their neighborhoods aren't cleared, get here if you can." Also a violation of the IEP.

Maybe if the district had never been set up like this in the first place, there would be more obvious solutions. But once it is this way, unwinding it and taking away stuff from special ed students is very fraught. I feel like every other issue could be solved and they can just get rid of magnet and immersion if everybody wants to prioritize weather zones, but I don't see how you get around the special ed problem with how things are currently set up.

Most neighborhoods are clear, though. They could pick up the vast majority of kids. There might be some that wouldn't be able to get picked up. That can happen due to a variety of reasons. My son has been in special education programs in MCPS and a few times a year his bus just doesn't show up without warning. Not over snow.

[Anonymous]

Not just roads: Why Montgomery Co. schools remain closed through Friday - WTOP News https://share.google/PtOxfZ4kXkMm4k3Lr

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm not sure how you solve the special ed issue in particular. Programs like immersion and magnet are nice extras but are not legally mandated, nor is any transportation to them. Not so for special education. Both the programming and the door-to-door transportation is legally required to be provided by MCPS.

Schools like RICA, Longview, Stephen Knolls, Rock Terrace, and Carl Sandburg have only one location in the county and pull students from the entire county. To duplicate these schools in multiple locations is extremely expensive and probably impossible to staff. To eliminate them would cost the county even more as every student there is extremely high needs and would have to go to a non-public placement like Ivymount or Sheppard-Pratt or even residential schools like Benedictine and possibly with aides. Add in all the related services they'd need (PT/OT/SLP/counseling) and it gets extremely expensive to outsource.

Then there are the programs that pull across an entire quad cluster or multiple clusters, like Extensions or Connections or Learning Center. They may be pulling kids from Rockville to Poolesville to one school. Smaller town districts don't have this diversity of programs, so those kids either don't get anything or the district spends a bunch on out-of-district and private placements for those kids.

You can't just say "Candlewood ES is open, except for the Extensions program which is closed." That's a violation of FAPE. You also can't say, "Candlewood ES is open and so is Extensions but too bad so sad there's no busing for Larlo and Carlo because their neighborhoods aren't cleared, get here if you can." Also a violation of the IEP.

Maybe if the district had never been set up like this in the first place, there would be more obvious solutions. But once it is this way, unwinding it and taking away stuff from special ed students is very fraught. I feel like every other issue could be solved and they can just get rid of magnet and immersion if everybody wants to prioritize weather zones, but I don't see how you get around the special ed problem with how things are currently set up.

Most neighborhoods are clear, though. They could pick up the vast majority of kids. There might be some that wouldn't be able to get picked up. That can happen due to a variety of reasons. My son has been in special education programs in MCPS and a few times a year his bus just doesn't show up without warning. Not over snow.

Mistakes happen after the fact, but deliberately creating the system to function that way from the start would fail if somebody filed for due process.

[Anonymous]

Among the many reasons already stated...

MCPS also operates its buses from a few bus depots. Currently, the bus depots are also not dug out yet - so even if one elementary school's lot and sidewalks are cleared, it is very possible MCPS cannot get its buses out of the depots to pick up the students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Because the teachers union would throw a fit if 80% of us got to stay home while 20% were forced to go in. Call us selfish but we have a union for a reason

Yup. I agree, this is about teachers' union having a fit.

😂

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Because the teachers union would throw a fit if 80% of us got to stay home while 20% were forced to go in. Call us selfish but we have a union for a reason

Yup. I agree, this is about teachers' union having a fit.

Yeah and the parents would have a fit too

[Anonymous]

Selfish teachers should be helping clear the snow.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Selfish teachers should be helping clear the snow.

I have been all week. Staying at home sucks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Selfish teachers should be helping clear the snow.

Ah yes, because teachers are also salaried snow-removal crews now. Love the creativity.

Selfish? Pretty sure teachers don’t control the weather or the plows.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm not sure how you solve the special ed issue in particular. Programs like immersion and magnet are nice extras but are not legally mandated, nor is any transportation to them. Not so for special education. Both the programming and the door-to-door transportation is legally required to be provided by MCPS.

Schools like RICA, Longview, Stephen Knolls, Rock Terrace, and Carl Sandburg have only one location in the county and pull students from the entire county. To duplicate these schools in multiple locations is extremely expensive and probably impossible to staff. To eliminate them would cost the county even more as every student there is extremely high needs and would have to go to a non-public placement like Ivymount or Sheppard-Pratt or even residential schools like Benedictine and possibly with aides. Add in all the related services they'd need (PT/OT/SLP/counseling) and it gets extremely expensive to outsource.

Then there are the programs that pull across an entire quad cluster or multiple clusters, like Extensions or Connections or Learning Center. They may be pulling kids from Rockville to Poolesville to one school. Smaller town districts don't have this diversity of programs, so those kids either don't get anything or the district spends a bunch on out-of-district and private placements for those kids.

You can't just say "Candlewood ES is open, except for the Extensions program which is closed." That's a violation of FAPE. You also can't say, "Candlewood ES is open and so is Extensions but too bad so sad there's no busing for Larlo and Carlo because their neighborhoods aren't cleared, get here if you can." Also a violation of the IEP.

Maybe if the district had never been set up like this in the first place, there would be more obvious solutions. But once it is this way, unwinding it and taking away stuff from special ed students is very fraught. I feel like every other issue could be solved and they can just get rid of magnet and immersion if everybody wants to prioritize weather zones, but I don't see how you get around the special ed problem with how things are currently set up.

Most neighborhoods are clear, though. They could pick up the vast majority of kids. There might be some that wouldn't be able to get picked up. That can happen due to a variety of reasons. My son has been in special education programs in MCPS and a few times a year his bus just doesn't show up without warning. Not over snow.

Our neighborhood is not clear. It's very difficult to drive as its reduced to one lane, and an icy mess at that. We don't have sidewalks on all blocks so kids have to walk in the street, not to mention trying to cross major roads. We switch between walking and a further out bus but we cannot even get to the bus stop safely as its on a busy road and the cut-through is all snow/ice and no sidewalk.