Thursday 5/21 Board of Education Meeting

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yikes. This BCC student's testimony in favor of Open Lunch actually works against him and his cause:

The last thing I would like to touch on is the safety of the school. The year before I got to B-CC, there was a bomb threat to the school. The school was quickly put into lockdown, but had this situation been real, the dangers would’ve been catastrophic. You see, many students were off campus due to the open lunch policy. As a result, they were able to hear of the incident and could evacuate back home. My older brother was not so lucky and was trapped in the classroom where he was eating lunch. I understand that safety is a major concern of the closed lunch proposal. I would argue that this real-world incident demonstrates how students' maturity and freedom kept students out of harm's way rather than in it. Thanks for giving me the opportunity to share.

He's basically admitting that BCC lost track of its kids when it had a lockdown because it was during Open Lunch and kids went home or somewhere other than the school during the lockdown. That sounds like a serious liability risk to me....

I’m a BCC parent in favor of open lunch and I agree that testimony isn’t helpful.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why does it say “tentative action” for the open lunch option. Is there a chance they don’t vote on it?

They are not actually voting on keeping or eliminating open lunch. They are voting on what to do with the existing board policy. They have a variety of options of how they could proceed but it sounds like the superintendent basically asked them to forfeit their own rights to govern this topic so he, our unelected king, could be in charge of it and decide for everyone.

I get that, but voting on whether or not to rescind the policy is taking action on the open lunch policy. Why would it be labeled as tentative?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why does it say “tentative action” for the open lunch option. Is there a chance they don’t vote on it?

They are not actually voting on keeping or eliminating open lunch. They are voting on what to do with the existing board policy. They have a variety of options of how they could proceed but it sounds like the superintendent basically asked them to forfeit their own rights to govern this topic so he, our unelected king, could be in charge of it and decide for everyone.

I get that, but voting on whether or not to rescind the policy is taking action on the open lunch policy. Why would it be labeled as tentative?

At the committee hearing, Wolff asked if they could skip the public comment period and the answer was there is nothing in Board policy or MCPS regulation that would allow that. I think they will vote tomorow to present the plan to rescind the regulation to the public for comment. The policy requires 21 days and the regulation 30 days for comment. The chief counsel had originally said that rescission wouldn't take place until the 2027-2028 school year to allow time for the comment period and planning, but Wolff went out of her way to say she wasn't proposing that timeline. She wants to ram this through as fast as she can for this coming school year.

The second the proposal was the SMOB, Maloo, and Zimmerman also voted in favor. The only dissent was Yang, who had tried to table and failed to get a second.

[Anonymous]

^^ Sorry the second for Wolff's proposal to table was the SMOB. What a disappointment she's been.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yikes. This BCC student's testimony in favor of Open Lunch actually works against him and his cause:

The last thing I would like to touch on is the safety of the school. The year before I got to B-CC, there was a bomb threat to the school. The school was quickly put into lockdown, but had this situation been real, the dangers would’ve been catastrophic. You see, many students were off campus due to the open lunch policy. As a result, they were able to hear of the incident and could evacuate back home. My older brother was not so lucky and was trapped in the classroom where he was eating lunch. I understand that safety is a major concern of the closed lunch proposal. I would argue that this real-world incident demonstrates how students' maturity and freedom kept students out of harm's way rather than in it. Thanks for giving me the opportunity to share.

He's basically admitting that BCC lost track of its kids when it had a lockdown because it was during Open Lunch and kids went home or somewhere other than the school during the lockdown. That sounds like a serious liability risk to me....

That’s not what he’s saying at all. He’s saying often the threats to safety are inside the school building, not outside, and in a real safety situation in the building at lunch, having 2400 minimally supervised kids inside in hallways, etc. may result in more harm than if some kids happened to be in a safe location outside the building. Take for example a fire. They don’t ever do fire drills or anything at lunch time or passing hallway time because it’s chaos. They always do drills when kids are neatly in classrooms.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yikes. This BCC student's testimony in favor of Open Lunch actually works against him and his cause:

The last thing I would like to touch on is the safety of the school. The year before I got to B-CC, there was a bomb threat to the school. The school was quickly put into lockdown, but had this situation been real, the dangers would’ve been catastrophic. You see, many students were off campus due to the open lunch policy. As a result, they were able to hear of the incident and could evacuate back home. My older brother was not so lucky and was trapped in the classroom where he was eating lunch. I understand that safety is a major concern of the closed lunch proposal. I would argue that this real-world incident demonstrates how students' maturity and freedom kept students out of harm's way rather than in it. Thanks for giving me the opportunity to share.

He's basically admitting that BCC lost track of its kids when it had a lockdown because it was during Open Lunch and kids went home or somewhere other than the school during the lockdown. That sounds like a serious liability risk to me....

That’s not what he’s saying at all. He’s saying often the threats to safety are inside the school building, not outside, and in a real safety situation in the building at lunch, having 2400 minimally supervised kids inside in hallways, etc. may result in more harm than if some kids happened to be in a safe location outside the building. Take for example a fire. They don’t ever do fire drills or anything at lunch time or passing hallway time because it’s chaos. They always do drills when kids are neatly in classrooms.

I know what he thinks he’s saying but he’s actually admitting that the school lost track of kids they had responsibility for during an emergency lockdown.

[Anonymous]

Open lunch policy is posted: https://go.boarddocs.com/mabe/mcpsmd/Board.nsf/files/DUAK9Q50CE33/$file/Tentative%20Action%20Policy%20JEF%20260521.pdf

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Open lunch policy is posted: https://go.boarddocs.com/mabe/mcpsmd/Board.nsf/files/DUAK9Q50CE33/$file/Tentative%20Action%20Policy%20JEF%20260521.pdf

What is is”be sent out for an extended public comment period”? How long? Does that mean they’re not trying to officially rescind it this summer in time for this fall?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Open lunch policy is posted: https://go.boarddocs.com/mabe/mcpsmd/Board.nsf/files/DUAK9Q50CE33/$file/Tentative%20Action%20Policy%20JEF%20260521.pdf

What is is”be sent out for an extended public comment period”? How long? Does that mean they’re not trying to officially rescind it this summer in time for this fall?

I think it would still go out this summer.

Julie Yang’s pushback on this point was that summer was a horrible time to solicit public feedback since teachers and students are on break during the summer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Open lunch policy is posted: https://go.boarddocs.com/mabe/mcpsmd/Board.nsf/files/DUAK9Q50CE33/$file/Tentative%20Action%20Policy%20JEF%20260521.pdf

What is is”be sent out for an extended public comment period”? How long? Does that mean they’re not trying to officially rescind it this summer in time for this fall?

I think it would still go out this summer.

Julie Yang’s pushback on this point was that summer was a horrible time to solicit public feedback since teachers and students are on break during the summer.

Yeah, makes sense. I wish Julie could stay in BOE. She is really the only one there now that can push some rational modifications/pushbacks.

[Anonymous]

Incidentally I sent a long detailed email to each Board member last week and did not even receive back a “thank you for your comment” response.
I am so sick of this chaotic thoughtless Board and administration.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Incidentally I sent a long detailed email to each Board member last week and did not even receive back a “thank you for your comment” response.
I am so sick of this chaotic thoughtless Board and administration.

Did you send it through the main BOE e-mail that gets copied to all Board members? Their staff has access to that too and usually sends a response back. Otherwise it is very rare to get a response-- Board members get thousands of emails and don't have time to reply to all of them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Incidentally I sent a long detailed email to each Board member last week and did not even receive back a “thank you for your comment” response.
I am so sick of this chaotic thoughtless Board and administration.

Did you send it through the main BOE e-mail that gets copied to all Board members? Their staff has access to that too and usually sends a response back. Otherwise it is very rare to get a response-- Board members get thousands of emails and don't have time to reply to all of them.

They don't know how to use automatic replies.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Open lunch policy is posted: https://go.boarddocs.com/mabe/mcpsmd/Board.nsf/files/DUAK9Q50CE33/$file/Tentative%20Action%20Policy%20JEF%20260521.pdf

What is is”be sent out for an extended public comment period”? How long? Does that mean they’re not trying to officially rescind it this summer in time for this fall?

I think it would still go out this summer.

Julie Yang’s pushback on this point was that summer was a horrible time to solicit public feedback since teachers and students are on break during the summer.

I think that just means it would be a 30 day comment period, rather than a 21 day comment period. The policy requires 21 days and the regulation 30 days. But I could be wrong.

It was clear in the policy management committee that Wolff intends to finalize the reg over the summer so it is effective this fall.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Open lunch policy is posted: https://go.boarddocs.com/mabe/mcpsmd/Board.nsf/files/DUAK9Q50CE33/$file/Tentative%20Action%20Policy%20JEF%20260521.pdf

What is is”be sent out for an extended public comment period”? How long? Does that mean they’re not trying to officially rescind it this summer in time for this fall?

I think it would still go out this summer.

Julie Yang’s pushback on this point was that summer was a horrible time to solicit public feedback since teachers and students are on break during the summer.

Yeah, makes sense. I wish Julie could stay in BOE. She is really the only one there now that can push some rational modifications/pushbacks.

Completely agree.