MCPS Brian Hill Dissembles

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I received an email from MCPS Chief Operating Officer Brian Hull where he was clearly not telling the truth. In his message, he says that the reason they are not considering calling a code purple for tomorrow, January 19, is because that code is only for large multiple-day events, which tomorrow’s storm should not be. While that was the original purpose of code purple, it is clear that the school system was actually trying to implement options for virtual learning anyway, but was unable to do so due to technical and competence limitations. Therefore, we know that Brian Hull is dissembling.

Watch his performances before the BOE. Masterful liar.

What's the scuttlebutt on him from inside MCPS? Do people like working for him or is he disliked by his own staff?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If parents only knew what a cluster today was for school admin trying to prep for a potential virtual day tomorrow. The lack of communication from central, rumors, various offices sending out conflicting information. etc. His email at the end of the day was a nice slap in the face. Just bold face lies.

I think we can imagine but I’m really sorry you ran around like that and then got gaslit.

To be fair, it was predictable. Anyone familiar with elementary schools knew they couldn't do virtual. And the central office was never going to fess up to their incompetence.

What needs to be done besides taking home your Chromebook from the cart and a charger? Some younger kids may need password help. Are they set up with the right program for the online learning (zoom? Canvas? Other?)? Seems like the start of the next quarter would be a good time to make sure everyone is set up for this.

Or make sure there are make-up days in the calendar.

Oh great! We already did that one!

You're obsessed with make-up days. Posting in every thread you can...there are other options and they should be used.

Right. Per the district's plans, there are 8 options built into the 2023-2024 calendar. Some are better than others. January 29th seems like the best one, but we'll see if the district can get its act together. Plus we'll probably need to use April 10th as well. These probably won't be the only snow days this year.

As I’ve said before, 4/10 should be a near-last resort. It’s a religious holiday and disenfranchises a group already experiencing hostility from MCPS. 4/22 and 6/14 should be used before 4/10.

4/22 is a religious holiday as well.

Passover begins at sundown. It's fine to have school that day.

Yes, either 4/10 or 4/22 would work fine. We'll probably need both of them.

The prep for a Passover Seder ain’t easy and requires more than a days work. That matzo ball soup don’t cook itself. I’m sure Eid and lunar New Year are the same. If we open one of those days then excused absences should be given to students and teachers alike. It’s a relatively simple solution

Religious observances have long been excused absences. That is nothing new.

Excused absences are still a hardship because students have to weigh the difficulty of making up work against their own religious celebrations that are being suppressed on importance by you

There is no way for MCPS to avoid having school on any day that may be a religious celebration. Allowing excused absences is all that is needed.

What they can do is avoid having 1 religion with 3 or 4 holidays while another with similar student impact has 0. That's discrimination.

It's based on operational impact, such as the number of staff and substitutes that would be out on a given day.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If parents only knew what a cluster today was for school admin trying to prep for a potential virtual day tomorrow. The lack of communication from central, rumors, various offices sending out conflicting information. etc. His email at the end of the day was a nice slap in the face. Just bold face lies.

I think we can imagine but I’m really sorry you ran around like that and then got gaslit.

To be fair, it was predictable. Anyone familiar with elementary schools knew they couldn't do virtual. And the central office was never going to fess up to their incompetence.

What needs to be done besides taking home your Chromebook from the cart and a charger? Some younger kids may need password help. Are they set up with the right program for the online learning (zoom? Canvas? Other?)? Seems like the start of the next quarter would be a good time to make sure everyone is set up for this.

Or make sure there are make-up days in the calendar.

Oh great! We already did that one!

You're obsessed with make-up days. Posting in every thread you can...there are other options and they should be used.

Right. Per the district's plans, there are 8 options built into the 2023-2024 calendar. Some are better than others. January 29th seems like the best one, but we'll see if the district can get its act together. Plus we'll probably need to use April 10th as well. These probably won't be the only snow days this year.

January 29 is not the best time for teachers. We need this day to grade, especially since we've lost so much time this week. If we had missed days in September due to a hurricane and found out two months ago we'd be losing January 29, fine. But it would be so messed up to take it away now, especially since so much is due right now - special education paperwork, SLOs, grades, prepping for MP3/Semester 2. The list goes on and on. Teachers need time to do all of these things and only giving a week's notice for a make up day is absurd.

Serious question for teachers. Would you prefer to have Jan 29 for grading and planning and have to come back for one day the week of June 17th to wrap up? Or the swap of that?

Teacher here...January 29th is my preference to be used.

Makes sense. My kids’ teachers have been grading all week. Might be more difficult for an ES teacher who is behind on grading, but for MS and HS, these teachers are getting it done this week because assignments are submitted electronically so they can access from home.

Not necessarily. There would have been new material covered, graded classroom work and/or tests this past week which in many cases did not happen. Don't know if they will be able to fit it in next week.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If parents only knew what a cluster today was for school admin trying to prep for a potential virtual day tomorrow. The lack of communication from central, rumors, various offices sending out conflicting information. etc. His email at the end of the day was a nice slap in the face. Just bold face lies.

I think we can imagine but I’m really sorry you ran around like that and then got gaslit.

To be fair, it was predictable. Anyone familiar with elementary schools knew they couldn't do virtual. And the central office was never going to fess up to their incompetence.

What needs to be done besides taking home your Chromebook from the cart and a charger? Some younger kids may need password help. Are they set up with the right program for the online learning (zoom? Canvas? Other?)? Seems like the start of the next quarter would be a good time to make sure everyone is set up for this.

Or make sure there are make-up days in the calendar.

Oh great! We already did that one!

You're obsessed with make-up days. Posting in every thread you can...there are other options and they should be used.

Right. Per the district's plans, there are 8 options built into the 2023-2024 calendar. Some are better than others. January 29th seems like the best one, but we'll see if the district can get its act together. Plus we'll probably need to use April 10th as well. These probably won't be the only snow days this year.

As I’ve said before, 4/10 should be a near-last resort. It’s a religious holiday and disenfranchises a group already experiencing hostility from MCPS. 4/22 and 6/14 should be used before 4/10.

4/22 is a religious holiday as well.

Passover begins at sundown. It's fine to have school that day.

Yes, either 4/10 or 4/22 would work fine. We'll probably need both of them.

The prep for a Passover Seder ain’t easy and requires more than a days work. That matzo ball soup don’t cook itself. I’m sure Eid and lunar New Year are the same. If we open one of those days then excused absences should be given to students and teachers alike. It’s a relatively simple solution

Religious observances have long been excused absences. That is nothing new.

Excused absences are still a hardship because students have to weigh the difficulty of making up work against their own religious celebrations that are being suppressed on importance by you

There is no way for MCPS to avoid having school on any day that may be a religious celebration. Allowing excused absences is all that is needed.

What they can do is avoid having 1 religion with 3 or 4 holidays while another with similar student impact has 0. That's discrimination.

It's based on operational impact, such as the number of staff and substitutes that would be out on a given day.

Whether a practice is discriminatory is based on both the intent and the impact. It can still be discrimination

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:May I be excused for Ramadan or Lent, please?

An easy solution is to just ignore all religious holidays equally. All religious days off are excused so I don't see the problem.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If parents only knew what a cluster today was for school admin trying to prep for a potential virtual day tomorrow. The lack of communication from central, rumors, various offices sending out conflicting information. etc. His email at the end of the day was a nice slap in the face. Just bold face lies.

I think we can imagine but I’m really sorry you ran around like that and then got gaslit.

To be fair, it was predictable. Anyone familiar with elementary schools knew they couldn't do virtual. And the central office was never going to fess up to their incompetence.

What needs to be done besides taking home your Chromebook from the cart and a charger? Some younger kids may need password help. Are they set up with the right program for the online learning (zoom? Canvas? Other?)? Seems like the start of the next quarter would be a good time to make sure everyone is set up for this.

Or make sure there are make-up days in the calendar.

Oh great! We already did that one!

You're obsessed with make-up days. Posting in every thread you can...there are other options and they should be used.

Right. Per the district's plans, there are 8 options built into the 2023-2024 calendar. Some are better than others. January 29th seems like the best one, but we'll see if the district can get its act together. Plus we'll probably need to use April 10th as well. These probably won't be the only snow days this year.

As I’ve said before, 4/10 should be a near-last resort. It’s a religious holiday and disenfranchises a group already experiencing hostility from MCPS. 4/22 and 6/14 should be used before 4/10.

4/22 is a religious holiday as well.

Passover begins at sundown. It's fine to have school that day.

Yes, either 4/10 or 4/22 would work fine. We'll probably need both of them.

The prep for a Passover Seder ain’t easy and requires more than a days work. That matzo ball soup don’t cook itself. I’m sure Eid and lunar New Year are the same. If we open one of those days then excused absences should be given to students and teachers alike. It’s a relatively simple solution

Religious observances have long been excused absences. That is nothing new.

Excused absences are still a hardship because students have to weigh the difficulty of making up work against their own religious celebrations that are being suppressed on importance by you

There is no way for MCPS to avoid having school on any day that may be a religious celebration. Allowing excused absences is all that is needed.

What they can do is avoid having 1 religion with 3 or 4 holidays while another with similar student impact has 0. That's discrimination.

It's based on operational impact, such as the number of staff and substitutes that would be out on a given day.

Whether a practice is discriminatory is based on both the intent and the impact. It can still be discrimination

It sounds like the options are:
- School must be in session on any day there is a religious holiday. In fact there should be school Saturdays and Sundays because it is not fair to the Muslim students that they can't have Friday off while Jews have Saturday and Christians have Sunday; or
- No school on any religious holiday. For example, in Eastern Christianity today is the Epiphany. Forget about the snow, today should never have been a school day.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If parents only knew what a cluster today was for school admin trying to prep for a potential virtual day tomorrow. The lack of communication from central, rumors, various offices sending out conflicting information. etc. His email at the end of the day was a nice slap in the face. Just bold face lies.

I think we can imagine but I’m really sorry you ran around like that and then got gaslit.

To be fair, it was predictable. Anyone familiar with elementary schools knew they couldn't do virtual. And the central office was never going to fess up to their incompetence.

What needs to be done besides taking home your Chromebook from the cart and a charger? Some younger kids may need password help. Are they set up with the right program for the online learning (zoom? Canvas? Other?)? Seems like the start of the next quarter would be a good time to make sure everyone is set up for this.

Or make sure there are make-up days in the calendar.

Oh great! We already did that one!

You're obsessed with make-up days. Posting in every thread you can...there are other options and they should be used.

Right. Per the district's plans, there are 8 options built into the 2023-2024 calendar. Some are better than others. January 29th seems like the best one, but we'll see if the district can get its act together. Plus we'll probably need to use April 10th as well. These probably won't be the only snow days this year.

As I’ve said before, 4/10 should be a near-last resort. It’s a religious holiday and disenfranchises a group already experiencing hostility from MCPS. 4/22 and 6/14 should be used before 4/10.

4/22 is a religious holiday as well.

Passover begins at sundown. It's fine to have school that day.

Yes, either 4/10 or 4/22 would work fine. We'll probably need both of them.

The prep for a Passover Seder ain’t easy and requires more than a days work. That matzo ball soup don’t cook itself. I’m sure Eid and lunar New Year are the same. If we open one of those days then excused absences should be given to students and teachers alike. It’s a relatively simple solution

Religious observances have long been excused absences. That is nothing new.

Excused absences are still a hardship because students have to weigh the difficulty of making up work against their own religious celebrations that are being suppressed on importance by you

There is no way for MCPS to avoid having school on any day that may be a religious celebration. Allowing excused absences is all that is needed.

What they can do is avoid having 1 religion with 3 or 4 holidays while another with similar student impact has 0. That's discrimination.

It's based on operational impact, such as the number of staff and substitutes that would be out on a given day.

Whether a practice is discriminatory is based on both the intent and the impact. It can still be discrimination

It sounds like the options are:
- School must be in session on any day there is a religious holiday. In fact there should be school Saturdays and Sundays because it is not fair to the Muslim students that they can't have Friday off while Jews have Saturday and Christians have Sunday; or
- No school on any religious holiday. For example, in Eastern Christianity today is the Epiphany. Forget about the snow, today should never have been a school day.

You don't get it. No.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was so unhappy with MCPS that I moved my 3rd and 4th kids to private for high school, but, I also think kids have not missed that much school due to weather since we started back up after COVID.

It has just been a couple of days. MCPS is too large to pivot to virtual learning on a days notice. My kid's private doesn't go virtual due to weather (even though they are well-setup to do it. Do we all remember when our kids missed weeks of learning in MCPS in March/April/May of 2020? That was a s***show. This is just a couple of days. Kids will be fine.

Finally, a SANE voice of reason. All these parents screaming that the sky is falling are absolutely unhinged.

You're hearing from just a few people that are either very strongly personally invested in virtual (probably parents whose kids are already in VA), as well as a few parents/teachers that are worried their spring break/summer plans are going to be affected because they chose to make inflexible plans on scheduled make-up days.

It's weird. There are days identified in the calendar for snow days. We're in exactly the situation they were intended for. There shouldn't be great controversy over what to do.

Just because the calendar was decided upon earlier doesn’t mean it isn’t biased or problematic. It also doesn’t specify the order in which makeup days are used, which is what we are discussing now. I don’t get how you can’t see that

No court would question a public school calendar developed through a district's standard public process. There's no risk of a discrimination lawsuit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:May I be excused for Ramadan or Lent, please?

An easy solution is to just ignore all religious holidays equally. All religious days off are excused so I don't see the problem.

It creates a hardship for students who want to celebrate their holiday, but cannot; whereas other religions' holidays ARE recognized. Thus, favoritism and discrimination.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:May I be excused for Ramadan or Lent, please?

An easy solution is to just ignore all religious holidays equally. All religious days off are excused so I don't see the problem.

It creates a hardship for students who want to celebrate their holiday, but cannot; whereas other religions' holidays ARE recognized. Thus, favoritism and discrimination.

Funny I don't recall seeing such forceful complaints when the calendar was developed with those dates identified as make-up days.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If parents only knew what a cluster today was for school admin trying to prep for a potential virtual day tomorrow. The lack of communication from central, rumors, various offices sending out conflicting information. etc. His email at the end of the day was a nice slap in the face. Just bold face lies.

I think we can imagine but I’m really sorry you ran around like that and then got gaslit.

To be fair, it was predictable. Anyone familiar with elementary schools knew they couldn't do virtual. And the central office was never going to fess up to their incompetence.

What needs to be done besides taking home your Chromebook from the cart and a charger? Some younger kids may need password help. Are they set up with the right program for the online learning (zoom? Canvas? Other?)? Seems like the start of the next quarter would be a good time to make sure everyone is set up for this.

Or make sure there are make-up days in the calendar.

Oh great! We already did that one!

You're obsessed with make-up days. Posting in every thread you can...there are other options and they should be used.

Right. Per the district's plans, there are 8 options built into the 2023-2024 calendar. Some are better than others. January 29th seems like the best one, but we'll see if the district can get its act together. Plus we'll probably need to use April 10th as well. These probably won't be the only snow days this year.

As I’ve said before, 4/10 should be a near-last resort. It’s a religious holiday and disenfranchises a group already experiencing hostility from MCPS. 4/22 and 6/14 should be used before 4/10.

4/22 is a religious holiday as well.

Passover begins at sundown. It's fine to have school that day.

Yes, either 4/10 or 4/22 would work fine. We'll probably need both of them.

The prep for a Passover Seder ain’t easy and requires more than a days work. That matzo ball soup don’t cook itself. I’m sure Eid and lunar New Year are the same. If we open one of those days then excused absences should be given to students and teachers alike. It’s a relatively simple solution

Religious observances have long been excused absences. That is nothing new.

Excused absences are still a hardship because students have to weigh the difficulty of making up work against their own religious celebrations that are being suppressed on importance by you

There is no way for MCPS to avoid having school on any day that may be a religious celebration. Allowing excused absences is all that is needed.

What they can do is avoid having 1 religion with 3 or 4 holidays while another with similar student impact has 0. That's discrimination.

It's based on operational impact, such as the number of staff and substitutes that would be out on a given day.

Whether a practice is discriminatory is based on both the intent and the impact. It can still be discrimination

It sounds like the options are:
- School must be in session on any day there is a religious holiday. In fact there should be school Saturdays and Sundays because it is not fair to the Muslim students that they can't have Friday off while Jews have Saturday and Christians have Sunday; or
- No school on any religious holiday. For example, in Eastern Christianity today is the Epiphany. Forget about the snow, today should never have been a school day.

You don't get it. No.

Okay tell me how I am wrong

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If parents only knew what a cluster today was for school admin trying to prep for a potential virtual day tomorrow. The lack of communication from central, rumors, various offices sending out conflicting information. etc. His email at the end of the day was a nice slap in the face. Just bold face lies.

I think we can imagine but I’m really sorry you ran around like that and then got gaslit.

To be fair, it was predictable. Anyone familiar with elementary schools knew they couldn't do virtual. And the central office was never going to fess up to their incompetence.

What needs to be done besides taking home your Chromebook from the cart and a charger? Some younger kids may need password help. Are they set up with the right program for the online learning (zoom? Canvas? Other?)? Seems like the start of the next quarter would be a good time to make sure everyone is set up for this.

Or make sure there are make-up days in the calendar.

Oh great! We already did that one!

You're obsessed with make-up days. Posting in every thread you can...there are other options and they should be used.

Right. Per the district's plans, there are 8 options built into the 2023-2024 calendar. Some are better than others. January 29th seems like the best one, but we'll see if the district can get its act together. Plus we'll probably need to use April 10th as well. These probably won't be the only snow days this year.

As I’ve said before, 4/10 should be a near-last resort. It’s a religious holiday and disenfranchises a group already experiencing hostility from MCPS. 4/22 and 6/14 should be used before 4/10.

4/22 is a religious holiday as well.

Passover begins at sundown. It's fine to have school that day.

Yes, either 4/10 or 4/22 would work fine. We'll probably need both of them.

The prep for a Passover Seder ain’t easy and requires more than a days work. That matzo ball soup don’t cook itself. I’m sure Eid and lunar New Year are the same. If we open one of those days then excused absences should be given to students and teachers alike. It’s a relatively simple solution

Religious observances have long been excused absences. That is nothing new.

Excused absences are still a hardship because students have to weigh the difficulty of making up work against their own religious celebrations that are being suppressed on importance by you

There is no way for MCPS to avoid having school on any day that may be a religious celebration. Allowing excused absences is all that is needed.

What they can do is avoid having 1 religion with 3 or 4 holidays while another with similar student impact has 0. That's discrimination.

It's based on operational impact, such as the number of staff and substitutes that would be out on a given day.

Whether a practice is discriminatory is based on both the intent and the impact. It can still be discrimination

It sounds like the options are:
- School must be in session on any day there is a religious holiday. In fact there should be school Saturdays and Sundays because it is not fair to the Muslim students that they can't have Friday off while Jews have Saturday and Christians have Sunday; or
- No school on any religious holiday. For example, in Eastern Christianity today is the Epiphany. Forget about the snow, today should never have been a school day.

You don't get it. No.

Okay tell me how I am wrong

You're being trolled by someone that really just wants to replace schools with virtual. I bet she's a 40-something stay-at-home white mom that is constantly looking to validate her decision to not work.

[Anonymous]

As usual, a few malcontents are always looking for something to complain about...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:May I be excused for Ramadan or Lent, please?

An easy solution is to just ignore all religious holidays equally. All religious days off are excused so I don't see the problem.

It creates a hardship for students who want to celebrate their holiday, but cannot; whereas other religions' holidays ARE recognized. Thus, favoritism and discrimination.

Of course they can. They can celebrate all they want to and it will be an excused absence.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:May I be excused for Ramadan or Lent, please?

An easy solution is to just ignore all religious holidays equally. All religious days off are excused so I don't see the problem.

It creates a hardship for students who want to celebrate their holiday, but cannot; whereas other religions' holidays ARE recognized. Thus, favoritism and discrimination.

Of course they can. They can celebrate all they want to and it will be an excused absence.

It’s systemic discrimination because other groups can celebrate their holidays without being absent