Washington Post Article

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:One of the problems with distance learning in my school district was that we teachers weren't allowed to record lessons with any student videos in them.

So say I am responsible for presenting a 4th grade science lesson. I'd be happy to do the lesson live, with a demonstration and some back and forth discussion between me and my students; then end with an explanation of how to do an interactive assignment online. But there's a good chance some or many students might fail to log on that day.

So they will need to be able to get online and make the lesson up. It would help if I could have just recorded the live lesson I did. But I'm not allowed to because it had students in it. So I'd have to make a separate video just of the presentation and the explanation of the activity.

If I have to make a video with no students in it, I'll just make that video and post it for everyone. I don't want to have to do double lessons for everything.

And this is the whole problem in MCPS- everything has to be dumbed down just because some kids can't login. When kids miss regular school, they don't get to watch a video of it! They just miss the class! Why does this have to be so different for distance learning? And the county offered chrome books and hot spots to those in need to make sure those who don't have that technology could participate. So it's really unfortunate that you could not do a 4th grade science live lesson because some kids don't/won't/can't login. Those who are able to login all suffer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

My 10 and 15 year old children are doing very well with MCPS.
Chevy Chase ES and Walter Johnson HS.

No complaints here.

Really? My kid’s at the same magnet and its been okay but not great. He’s only working about 2 hours a day, although a bit more now that one of the GREAT teachers volunteered to lead an extra club to teach more for those kids that wanted it.

I agree with the PPs that the instructional videos recorded by outside entities seem pretty worthless. I have multiple motivated learners and they say they can’t follow them at all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:students could consent?

Every student’s parents would have to consent and if there’s even one holdout, you can’t do it. A few years ago, I had the opportunity to have a really unique speaker come for free, but the organization would only pay if they could record the assembly. We were unable to get all seventh graders’ parents to sign. Our thought was to exclude them from the assembly. Turns out that we couldn’t do that. So we lost the opportunity for the speaker.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I really don't understand how anyone can think that MCPS is doing a good job with distance learning. I understand this was an incredibly abrupt shift, and it was not going to be perfect. But my relatives' kids in NY public schools have been in live classes 4-5 hrs/day since 1 week after they closed the schools. How is possible that a school system with tens of thousands of homeless kids has been providing more instruction than MCPS?

Whatever the explanation, MCPS has to do better in the fall. It's inconceivable that we're going to be able to return to meaningful in-classroom learning until there's a vaccine, so someone has got to figure out how to provide multiple hours of instruction every day for all kids. MCPS has 23k teachers. There's simply no reason they can't figure out a way to teach our kids in an extended period of distance learning.

My elementary kid gets 30 minutes of teaching per day. Without any structure (and since both parents work) he spends WAY too much time on videogames and Youtube. My HS kid has periodic "check-ins" but no instruction whatsoever. Luckily we already had a few tutors and will be adding to that roster just so he actually learns something. But it infuriates me that I'm paying an MCPS teacher to tutor him in math during school hours. Shouldn't she be teaching her students during that time? Shouldn't my son's MCPS teacher be actually teaching her students during the school day?

But hey, I live in Bethesda, so my kids are worthless snowflakes and I have no right to expect that they actually learn something, right DCUM?

They are getting paid to tutor during MCPS school hours? Wow. Just, wow.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Great article. Precisely what we need in these times is another public platform for random loudmouth Bethesda parents and the Westland MS PTA president to continue griping and whining about how MCPS is not adequately catering to their child. A brief respite from hearing them griping and whining about boundary changes and the traumatic possibility of having more of "those" kids in their school. Slap in a sentence about "equity" to appear balanced, ignore all other issues, and call it a day. The article reads like a DCUM thread, right down to anonymously slamming MCEA, but with slightly better formatting.

Screw you. Do you actually think any of the kids at any of the schools are actually learning? It is great that mcps is feeding the kids who need it and giving out chromebooks and hotspots. But they should be doing that so that kids can learn at home. All kids. And right now, as evidenced by what is going on with my 3 kids (1 in MS, 2 in HS), there is not much of that happening and mcps does not seem to care.

MCPS does need to figure this out before the Fall. They get a pass for the final marking period, but if it's not much improved, we are out of here. Working from home, people can now work from anywhere, amd we intend to do just that. We originally moved to MC for the schools. We can leave because of them too.

I think my kid is learning more and has more time for creativity and reading. We supplement with a bit of Khan and do our own science.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I really don't understand how anyone can think that MCPS is doing a good job with distance learning. I understand this was an incredibly abrupt shift, and it was not going to be perfect. But my relatives' kids in NY public schools have been in live classes 4-5 hrs/day since 1 week after they closed the schools. How is possible that a school system with tens of thousands of homeless kids has been providing more instruction than MCPS?

Whatever the explanation, MCPS has to do better in the fall. It's inconceivable that we're going to be able to return to meaningful in-classroom learning until there's a vaccine, so someone has got to figure out how to provide multiple hours of instruction every day for all kids. MCPS has 23k teachers. There's simply no reason they can't figure out a way to teach our kids in an extended period of distance learning.

My elementary kid gets 30 minutes of teaching per day. Without any structure (and since both parents work) he spends WAY too much time on videogames and Youtube. My HS kid has periodic "check-ins" but no instruction whatsoever. Luckily we already had a few tutors and will be adding to that roster just so he actually learns something. But it infuriates me that I'm paying an MCPS teacher to tutor him in math during school hours. Shouldn't she be teaching her students during that time? Shouldn't my son's MCPS teacher be actually teaching her students during the school day?

But hey, I live in Bethesda, so my kids are worthless snowflakes and I have no right to expect that they actually learn something, right DCUM?

I am a teacher and I agree with the fact that we have to do a better job in the fall. As an elementary teacher, I was surprised by the current schedule. I am more than willing to teach more live lessons each day. One way that I have gotten around the limited time issue, is to have more of the optional office hours. Of course, less students come to office hours, but many do attend because they know that we will do something fun in addition to the class work. Another issue is that the county is requiring us to have office hours in the afternoon, but we teach the lessons in the morning. When the students sign off for a couple hours its’ hard to get them back. I think that a teaching schedule from 9-12, lunch break from 12-1, and optional office hours from 1-3 would work out well...of course allow for flexibility...I know that there may be issues for teachers of little ones, but I know that there are some creative ways to address this too... I don’t see anything wrong with them allowing their kids to be a part of their lessons...another issue is having enough technology in student homes if there are multiple students needing devices...well let’s make sure that each child has a device!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Screw you. Do you actually think any of the kids at any of the schools are actually learning? It is great that mcps is feeding the kids who need it and giving out chromebooks and hotspots. But they should be doing that so that kids can learn at home. All kids. And right now, as evidenced by what is going on with my 3 kids (1 in MS, 2 in HS), there is not much of that happening and mcps does not seem to care.

MCPS does need to figure this out before the Fall. They get a pass for the final marking period, but if it's not much improved, we are out of here. Working from home, people can now work from anywhere, amd we intend to do just that. We originally moved to MC for the schools. We can leave because of them too.

In long ago Internet days, that used to be called a "flounce."