Surreal... Zoom capacity email in Regional Quarantine Program

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If this is not an equity-related reason to switch to virtual, I don't know what its.

MY BRAIN IS EXPLODING.

Um. What?

Yes, let's switch to virtual, so half of the kids in virtual "school" don't even log on because, wait for it, they have little support at home. Your post makes zero sense.

It's amazing how people have such short memories for all the ways that virtual School absolutely failed kids.

It did not absolutely fail kids but keep telling yourself that to make yourself feel better. Was it ideal? No. Is NORMAL in person better? Duh. This year is far from normal and the kids would benefit more from virtual than what they are getting in person under the current conditions. Most people with critical thinking skills can recognize this. Then there’s the mindless “reopen no matter what” crowd who just refuse to listen to students, staff, and admin actually in buildings right now.

Do you have any kids in person right now or are you just making baseless assumptions?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Hogan and others refused to restrict businesses in time, so I said before Christmas that an organized pivot to virtual would be necessary for two weeks in January, to mitigate hospital saturation and ensure that families could plan.

Parents yelled that it wasn't fair that schools should close before businesses, some claimed they preferred the daily uncertainty and potential chaos, others said they'd already closed too long in 2020-21, etc...

I know some families are regretting that a better planned and organized pivot wasn't executed.

It's sad that people come up with reasons that have nothing to do with our current situation (continuity of learning) to reject common sense measures. We didn't need to shut down for Delta, despite the spike in cases and hospitalizations. We needed to shut down briefly for Omicron, given the historic peak of hospitalizations.

It’s pretty clear it would have been longer than two weeks given the current case levels. Closing MCPS for two weeks would have had no meaningful effect on community levels, and parents would still be howling that they couldn’t go back next Tuesday. Would have been January at a minimum.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If this is not an equity-related reason to switch to virtual, I don't know what its.

MY BRAIN IS EXPLODING.

Um. What?

Yes, let's switch to virtual, so half of the kids in virtual "school" don't even log on because, wait for it, they have little support at home. Your post makes zero sense.

It's amazing how people have such short memories for all the ways that virtual School absolutely failed kids.

It did not absolutely fail kids but keep telling yourself that to make yourself feel better. Was it ideal? No. Is NORMAL in person better? Duh. This year is far from normal and the kids would benefit more from virtual than what they are getting in person under the current conditions. Most people with critical thinking skills can recognize this. Then there’s the mindless “reopen no matter what” crowd who just refuse to listen to students, staff, and admin actually in buildings right now.

Do you have any kids in person right now or are you just making baseless assumptions?

Yes. I do. I also work in one. Peoples experiences aren’t “baseless” just because they don’t align with your thinking. We are here living it. Just keep your head in the sand while insulting other people who actually know what is going on.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am not even going to say anything... I will just post the MCPS email I received from my kid's elementary school yesterday at 9:00PM!

"We apologize for the late email, but we just received some important information about the regional quarantine instructional program. The zoom capacity has been reached for each grade level and the program is making changes for the remainder of the week. Please see below.

If you have a student accessing regional quarantine instruction for tomorrow, please note that the anticipated enrollment exceeds the current capacity of our Zooms. We will be adjusting the model to accommodate an unlimited number of students starting next week, but for tomorrow and Friday, please note the following changes.

Math: Instructors will break the 9:45-10:45 session into two parts. If you try to log in at 9:45 and cannot access the Zoom, the limit has been reached. Please try to log in to the 2nd session at 10:20 am.

Literacy: Instructors will break the 11:00-12:15 session into two parts. If you try and log in at 11:00 am and cannot access the Zoom, please try again at 11:35 am.

We do apologize for the disruption this will create for your families, as we look for flexible ways to support all of the families who want to access quarantine instruction while unable to attend school due to COVID safety protocols.

MCPS fail #783,541 for school year 21/22

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If this is not an equity-related reason to switch to virtual, I don't know what its.

MY BRAIN IS EXPLODING.

You are not entitled an education when your kids are out sick. You are lucky to get anything.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Honestly, the workaround they came up with on short notice seems pretty good to me.

I deal with Zoom capacity at my workplace though (everyone's licenses have capacity up to 1,000, but we have a special shared license up to 3,000 for the 6 - 10 meetings a year we need it for - and the licensing is quite complex so it isn't just "go click a button online and add more capacity"), so I'm sympathetic to this.

This is not a "workaround they came up with on short notice". The regional quarantine instructional program has been in place since September. Once cases and quarantine numbers started to skyrocket, no one bothered to figure out whether the program's Zoom licenses would be sufficient to handle the uptick. How can you be sympathetic to elementary school kids who are in quarantine having access to only 30 minutes of reading instruction and 30 minutes of math per day? That's it. 1 hour of school. Sympathetic? It's inexcusable, embarrassing and sad.

The answer to every question about MCPS failures is poor planning. Every single time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Honestly, the workaround they came up with on short notice seems pretty good to me.

I deal with Zoom capacity at my workplace though (everyone's licenses have capacity up to 1,000, but we have a special shared license up to 3,000 for the 6 - 10 meetings a year we need it for - and the licensing is quite complex so it isn't just "go click a button online and add more capacity"), so I'm sympathetic to this.

This is not a "workaround they came up with on short notice". The regional quarantine instructional program has been in place since September. Once cases and quarantine numbers started to skyrocket, no one bothered to figure out whether the program's Zoom licenses would be sufficient to handle the uptick. How can you be sympathetic to elementary school kids who are in quarantine having access to only 30 minutes of reading instruction and 30 minutes of math per day? That's it. 1 hour of school. Sympathetic? It's inexcusable, embarrassing and sad.

The answer to every question about MCPS failures is poor planning. Every single time.

MCPS was clear there would be no instruction so its a failure to plan on your part, not theirs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If this is not an equity-related reason to switch to virtual, I don't know what its.

MY BRAIN IS EXPLODING.

Um. What?

Yes, let's switch to virtual, so half of the kids in virtual "school" don't even log on because, wait for it, they have little support at home. Your post makes zero sense.

It's amazing how people have such short memories for all the ways that virtual School absolutely failed kids.

Virtual didn't fail kids. The set up/curriculum because of parents who complained it was too much work for them. Or, the kids who choose not to participate but that's on the parents, not MCPS.

Many kids did just fine.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If this is not an equity-related reason to switch to virtual, I don't know what its.

MY BRAIN IS EXPLODING.

Um. What?

Yes, let's switch to virtual, so half of the kids in virtual "school" don't even log on because, wait for it, they have little support at home. Your post makes zero sense.

It's amazing how people have such short memories for all the ways that virtual School absolutely failed kids.

Virtual didn't fail kids. The set up/curriculum because of parents who complained it was too much work for them. Or, the kids who choose not to participate but that's on the parents, not MCPS.

Many kids did just fine.

And many kids didn't.

DCUM maxim: what works for my kid works for everyone's kid!
And its corollary: what doesn't work for my kid doesn't work for anyone's kid!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If this is not an equity-related reason to switch to virtual, I don't know what its.

MY BRAIN IS EXPLODING.

Um. What?

Yes, let's switch to virtual, so half of the kids in virtual "school" don't even log on because, wait for it, they have little support at home. Your post makes zero sense.

It's amazing how people have such short memories for all the ways that virtual School absolutely failed kids.

Virtual didn't fail kids. The set up/curriculum because of parents who complained it was too much work for them. Or, the kids who choose not to participate but that's on the parents, not MCPS.

Many kids did just fine.

And many kids didn't.

DCUM maxim: what works for my kid works for everyone's kid!
And its corollary: what doesn't work for my kid doesn't work for anyone's kid!

If your kids were not fine, what are you doing about it?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Honestly, the workaround they came up with on short notice seems pretty good to me.

I deal with Zoom capacity at my workplace though (everyone's licenses have capacity up to 1,000, but we have a special shared license up to 3,000 for the 6 - 10 meetings a year we need it for - and the licensing is quite complex so it isn't just "go click a button online and add more capacity"), so I'm sympathetic to this.

This is not a "workaround they came up with on short notice". The regional quarantine instructional program has been in place since September. Once cases and quarantine numbers started to skyrocket, no one bothered to figure out whether the program's Zoom licenses would be sufficient to handle the uptick. How can you be sympathetic to elementary school kids who are in quarantine having access to only 30 minutes of reading instruction and 30 minutes of math per day? That's it. 1 hour of school. Sympathetic? It's inexcusable, embarrassing and sad.

The answer to every question about MCPS failures is poor planning. Every single time.

MCPS was clear there would be no instruction so its a failure to plan on your part, not theirs.

Are you okay? I’m serious.