Virtual Snow Days

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The purpose here is to reserve the ability to have a virtual day instead of using a snow day. However, they are pretty much targeting multiday events. So when we get a snow storm of 18 inches on a Sunday night, they can close on Monday as regular, but then use virtual days for Tuesday onward.

+1. The bigger question is, will we ever get that many inches of snow again?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The purpose here is to reserve the ability to have a virtual day instead of using a snow day. However, they are pretty much targeting multiday events. So when we get a snow storm of 18 inches on a Sunday night, they can close on Monday as regular, but then use virtual days for Tuesday onward.

+1. The bigger question is, will we ever get that many inches of snow again?

Of course we will. There is no reason why that won’t happen

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My principal told us Monday that MCPS was going to require live, synchronous zoom classes on snow days.

Yeah, we're not doing this.

-Parent

Full disclosure- I’m not an mcps parent. But there’s zero chance I’d require my kid to get on a zoom on a sledding day.

You mean a school day?

[Anonymous]

I don’t think they are saying they are reserving these for multi-day events, just predictable events so they have less to make up at the end of the year. That would include when snow or ice is forecasted and it ends up being a nothingburger, like most of our “snow” days in recent years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don’t think they are saying they are reserving these for multi-day events, just predictable events so they have less to make up at the end of the year. That would include when snow or ice is forecasted and it ends up being a nothingburger, like most of our “snow” days in recent years.

Multi-day events are one scenario, but not the only scenario when they'll consider a virtual day:

The impacting event is predictable
The impacting event is part of a multi-day scenario (blizzard etc.), or
Prior preparation and communication with families, students, and staff has taken place

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don’t think they are saying they are reserving these for multi-day events, just predictable events so they have less to make up at the end of the year. That would include when snow or ice is forecasted and it ends up being a nothingburger, like most of our “snow” days in recent years.

Agreed. I would much rather have a virtual day on a crappy ice-day than lose a planned day off because we had more than 2 emergency closures.

Our recent 2-hr delay is an example where we knew ahead of time about the event, but weren't sure how it would play out.
https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/1099317.page

I remember last year a lot of angst about the ice/rain closure on 1/20/22, which then caused us to add a day at the end of the year.
https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/1030620.page

Adding this virtual option makes it possible to keep folks safe and keep school going while allowing people to plan for the following day instead of scrambling around the morning of a delay or closure.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My principal told us Monday that MCPS was going to require live, synchronous zoom classes on snow days.

Yeah, we're not doing this.

-Parent

We won’t either. But I don’t care if they hold the zoom without us.

- another parent

This is why zoom ends up being useless - half the kids will skip.
I’m a HS teacher. There is no way I can teach new material that day.

What could work is requiring teachers to hold 2 hour zoom office hours on virtual days. Kids could get extra help if needed or sort out any grade or incomplete assignment questions. Or maybe 4 hours total - 2h in the morning and 2h in the afternoon to give maximum flexibility for kids to attend

Zoom isn't useless for the kids who have active parents who make sure they attend. If kids don't attend they get an unexcused absence. Simple. Have some consequences. If they miss the content that's on them.

For a school system that loves to highlight all of their equity and inclusion, virtual snow days are far from equitable. Many of my students do not have access to a computer at home, even after sending home flyers and emails encouraging families to sign up to borrow one from MCPS for the school year. And they don't know how to log on to zoom, because they have never been in zoom school. These virtual snow days will be incredibly unproductive days of tech troubleshooting and frustration for early elementary students.

There's a Chromebook for every kid in school. MCPS supplies wifi hotspots as needed. We did this dance a couple years ago.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My principal told us Monday that MCPS was going to require live, synchronous zoom classes on snow days.

Yeah, we're not doing this.

-Parent

We won’t either. But I don’t care if they hold the zoom without us.

- another parent

This is why zoom ends up being useless - half the kids will skip.
I’m a HS teacher. There is no way I can teach new material that day.

What could work is requiring teachers to hold 2 hour zoom office hours on virtual days. Kids could get extra help if needed or sort out any grade or incomplete assignment questions. Or maybe 4 hours total - 2h in the morning and 2h in the afternoon to give maximum flexibility for kids to attend

Zoom isn't useless for the kids who have active parents who make sure they attend. If kids don't attend they get an unexcused absence. Simple. Have some consequences. If they miss the content that's on them.

For a school system that loves to highlight all of their equity and inclusion, virtual snow days are far from equitable. Many of my students do not have access to a computer at home, even after sending home flyers and emails encouraging families to sign up to borrow one from MCPS for the school year. And they don't know how to log on to zoom, because they have never been in zoom school. These virtual snow days will be incredibly unproductive days of tech troubleshooting and frustration for early elementary students.

There's a Chromebook for every kid in school. MCPS supplies wifi hotspots as needed. We did this dance a couple years ago.

Yes but some kids live in a home with multiple families and a lot of noise and distractions. Kindergarten students won't know how to log into zoom. There ARE limitations for some.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My principal told us Monday that MCPS was going to require live, synchronous zoom classes on snow days.

Yeah, we're not doing this.

-Parent

We won’t either. But I don’t care if they hold the zoom without us.

- another parent

This is why zoom ends up being useless - half the kids will skip.
I’m a HS teacher. There is no way I can teach new material that day.

What could work is requiring teachers to hold 2 hour zoom office hours on virtual days. Kids could get extra help if needed or sort out any grade or incomplete assignment questions. Or maybe 4 hours total - 2h in the morning and 2h in the afternoon to give maximum flexibility for kids to attend

Zoom isn't useless for the kids who have active parents who make sure they attend. If kids don't attend they get an unexcused absence. Simple. Have some consequences. If they miss the content that's on them.

For a school system that loves to highlight all of their equity and inclusion, virtual snow days are far from equitable. Many of my students do not have access to a computer at home, even after sending home flyers and emails encouraging families to sign up to borrow one from MCPS for the school year. And they don't know how to log on to zoom, because they have never been in zoom school. These virtual snow days will be incredibly unproductive days of tech troubleshooting and frustration for early elementary students.

There's a Chromebook for every kid in school. MCPS supplies wifi hotspots as needed. We did this dance a couple years ago.

Yes but some kids live in a home with multiple families and a lot of noise and distractions. Kindergarten students won't know how to log into zoom. There ARE limitations for some.

Certainly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The purpose here is to reserve the ability to have a virtual day instead of using a snow day. However, they are pretty much targeting multiday events. So when we get a snow storm of 18 inches on a Sunday night, they can close on Monday as regular, but then use virtual days for Tuesday onward.

Yes. I can only think some of these posters have young kids and they missed out on the big snowstorms from 10 years ago. MCPS was closed a whole week due to one of those storms. By the second day, parents were begging for their kids to return to school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My principal told us Monday that MCPS was going to require live, synchronous zoom classes on snow days.

Yeah, we're not doing this.

-Parent

We won’t either. But I don’t care if they hold the zoom without us.

- another parent

This is why zoom ends up being useless - half the kids will skip.
I’m a HS teacher. There is no way I can teach new material that day.

What could work is requiring teachers to hold 2 hour zoom office hours on virtual days. Kids could get extra help if needed or sort out any grade or incomplete assignment questions. Or maybe 4 hours total - 2h in the morning and 2h in the afternoon to give maximum flexibility for kids to attend

Zoom isn't useless for the kids who have active parents who make sure they attend. If kids don't attend they get an unexcused absence. Simple. Have some consequences. If they miss the content that's on them.

For a school system that loves to highlight all of their equity and inclusion, virtual snow days are far from equitable. Many of my students do not have access to a computer at home, even after sending home flyers and emails encouraging families to sign up to borrow one from MCPS for the school year. And they don't know how to log on to zoom, because they have never been in zoom school. These virtual snow days will be incredibly unproductive days of tech troubleshooting and frustration for early elementary students.

There's a Chromebook for every kid in school. MCPS supplies wifi hotspots as needed. We did this dance a couple years ago.

Yes, there is a Chromebook for every student. However, we went back to using the Chromebook cart to hold and charge the devices. The chargers are are all wired into the cart. They can’t just be pulled out and put back in as needed. Our IT person hard wired all the carts. I would think we would need extra chargers for each student (and cases as well).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My principal told us Monday that MCPS was going to require live, synchronous zoom classes on snow days. He said to pay attention to weather forecasts and remind students to take devices home. He also said there will be a color code similar to Howard County on snow days to differentiate when schools are closed in person but open online or when teachers have to report to the building but students do not. I didn’t get to ask what I’m supposed to do with my own children if I Mayo see to work from school but they aren’t in school in person. Or how I’m supposed to be stuck on zoom with a 7 year old running around. I refuse to teach on zoom for a snow day. I will post asynchronous homework. Children deserve to have snow days. This will continue to drive parents away from MCPS to private schools.

I didn’t see any codes that required teachers to report to do instruction when students stayed home. Also, your 7 year old is old enough to sit just like they would at school. His teacher would build breaks into her Zoom class.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The purpose here is to reserve the ability to have a virtual day instead of using a snow day. However, they are pretty much targeting multiday events. So when we get a snow storm of 18 inches on a Sunday night, they can close on Monday as regular, but then use virtual days for Tuesday onward.

Yes. I can only think some of these posters have young kids and they missed out on the big snowstorms from 10 years ago. MCPS was closed a whole week due to one of those storms. By the second day, parents were begging for their kids to return to school.

One year we closed nearly three weeks due to three back to back storms. I think it was 2008 or 2009.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My principal told us Monday that MCPS was going to require live, synchronous zoom classes on snow days. He said to pay attention to weather forecasts and remind students to take devices home. He also said there will be a color code similar to Howard County on snow days to differentiate when schools are closed in person but open online or when teachers have to report to the building but students do not. I didn’t get to ask what I’m supposed to do with my own children if I Mayo see to work from school but they aren’t in school in person. Or how I’m supposed to be stuck on zoom with a 7 year old running around. I refuse to teach on zoom for a snow day. I will post asynchronous homework. Children deserve to have snow days. This will continue to drive parents away from MCPS to private schools.

You do the same thing that other working parents do when school is closed but work is not. You make sure you have backup childcare in place or you negotiate with you spouse (if you have) who will supervise the children on a given day. If it’s your day to supervise your children, you take the day off and use PTO.

Everyone I know with kids that isn’t a teacher has a job flexible enough or with enough leave that they don’t have to work from home while supervising their child. Yet they get paid 300% more than I do.

Then it sounds like you need to switch to another job. Not all jobs have that flexibility. Teaching for example doesn’t.

NP. You really want to drive another teacher out with your "tough love" rhetoric? Look, PP brought up some legit concerns of an underpaid, overworked job. Thanks for all you juggle in addition to all the work you do w/ our kids, Teachers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My principal told us Monday that MCPS was going to require live, synchronous zoom classes on snow days.

Yeah, we're not doing this.

-Parent

Full disclosure- I’m not an mcps parent. But there’s zero chance I’d require my kid to get on a zoom on a sledding day.

Why are you even posting here, if you're not an MCPS parent?