Virtual Snow Days

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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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).

They addressed this at the board meeting. Staff said they were getting enough additional chargers out to the schools that use the chromebook carts.

[Anonymous]

After years of detesting virtual and how harmful it is for our children we are embracing it now. Let’s get excited for multi day Zoom sesh woo

[Anonymous]

Many students won’t attend the virtual classes. New content will never be taught this way. The day will be filled with busy work since new material won’t be introduced. There are likely many elementary classes where the classroom teacher doesn’t use the Canvas platform. These students will have trouble navigating the platform and resources. While it may count as an instructional day, there will be very little instruction at the elementary level with these virtual days.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Many students won’t attend the virtual classes. New content will never be taught this way. The day will be filled with busy work since new material won’t be introduced. There are likely many elementary classes where the classroom teacher doesn’t use the Canvas platform. These students will have trouble navigating the platform and resources. While it may count as an instructional day, there will be very little instruction at the elementary level with these virtual days.

They figured it out before, they can figure it out again. Give the kids some credit.

[Anonymous]

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.

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.

I didn’t see that code either. I was just sharing what my principal told all faculty at our Monday meeting prior to the community announcement. And no, my 7 yo is not going to sit all day at a computer. They don’t do that in real life, even when medicated. Home is full of all kinds of distractions that are very different than a school environment. At best, my 7yo will sit and listen for 30 minutes and then turn off the device.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Many students won’t attend the virtual classes. New content will never be taught this way. The day will be filled with busy work since new material won’t be introduced. There are likely many elementary classes where the classroom teacher doesn’t use the Canvas platform. These students will have trouble navigating the platform and resources. While it may count as an instructional day, there will be very little instruction at the elementary level with these virtual days.

Then they miss the content and as a parent, you figure out how to give them that content. Problem solved.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:After years of detesting virtual and how harmful it is for our children we are embracing it now. Let’s get excited for multi day Zoom sesh woo

It's a few days a year at best. Teach your kids to be resilient. They will be just fine.

[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.

10 years ago each child didn't have a computer so it wasn't possible.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Many students won’t attend the virtual classes. New content will never be taught this way. The day will be filled with busy work since new material won’t be introduced. There are likely many elementary classes where the classroom teacher doesn’t use the Canvas platform. These students will have trouble navigating the platform and resources. While it may count as an instructional day, there will be very little instruction at the elementary level with these virtual days.

Correct. At the elementary level, Canvas/MyMCPS Classroom appears to be completely ignored. The only way flipping the switch like this can be feasible is if Canvas/MyMCPS Classroom is used in BOTH in-person and virtual learning experiences.

I actually don't think it's bad to avoid working on new material during snow days. In this area, they don't often go beyond 1-2 snow days anyway.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Many students won’t attend the virtual classes. New content will never be taught this way. The day will be filled with busy work since new material won’t be introduced. There are likely many elementary classes where the classroom teacher doesn’t use the Canvas platform. These students will have trouble navigating the platform and resources. While it may count as an instructional day, there will be very little instruction at the elementary level with these virtual days.

Correct. At the elementary level, Canvas/MyMCPS Classroom appears to be completely ignored. The only way flipping the switch like this can be feasible is if Canvas/MyMCPS Classroom is used in BOTH in-person and virtual learning experiences.

I actually don't think it's bad to avoid working on new material during snow days. In this area, they don't often go beyond 1-2 snow days anyway.

Unfortunately, at the elementary level, our Benchmark and Eureka scope and sequence documents don't leave much wiggle room. We will have to present the next lessons in the sequence on those days. Honestly, it's not a big deal if kids don't attend. My own kids won't be attending. From what I understand if this were to be used, we would have to be notified by noon the day before. I could show my third graders how to access the Zoom link that same afternoon in advance of our virtual day. I can only see us doing this as a system once or twice a year. Not a big deal.

[Anonymous]

Today my principal tells us that the state allowed districts up to 8 virtual days to count as school days with 3 of them allowed to be asynchronous. For reasons unknown, MCPS chose to go only the live class route. Why not so asynchronous if we think it will only be a day or 2 a year? Why bother with the hassle and stress of synchronous classes?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Today my principal tells us that the state allowed districts up to 8 virtual days to count as school days with 3 of them allowed to be asynchronous. For reasons unknown, MCPS chose to go only the live class route. Why not so asynchronous if we think it will only be a day or 2 a year? Why bother with the hassle and stress of synchronous classes?

exactly. because some people will complain.