First days of school

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Its amazing how many of these kids with "bathroom emergencies" suddenly don't need to go any more when I require them to trade their cell phone for a bathroom pass.

We are at two different HS's. One is very relaxed and one is very strict. The strict one requires all kids in all classes as they walk in to put theri cell phones in a holder. Why aren't you doing that and why are you allowing phones?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Has your child never had to wait like 10 minutes for a bathroom? When you’re on a road trip or something? Assuming no special needs they can wait a few minutes.

The problem is they’re waiting more than four hours from leaving home for bus to getting to lunch time. (And there’s, of course, a line at lunch.)

Or more, if they have a later lunch. And, half or more of the bathrooms are locked.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:E hall pass is amazing from a school perspective as we can now limit how many students are in the hallway building wide. Set the cap at 15 and it locks anyone else from submitting a pass when that number is reached. I used it in a different school system and it was very successful.

The only downside from a teacher's perspective is that you will have to temporarily stop instruction to approve the pass but that's no different than having to stop to write a hand written pass.

But what about kid #16 who really needs to go … like now.

They’re SOL. These policies are absurd. You can’t go during the first 10 minutes or last 10 minutes of any class; you can’t go if too many other people already have passes; you can’t go in a bathroom if there’s already a certain number of people in it (even in between classes, so that’s not necessarily an option); the electronic pass is only good for 10 minutes, even if you’re coming from a portable, so even if you’re carrying a traditional pass, if the electronic one expires before you get back to class, you’re in trouble; you can’t go to the bathroom during classroom instruction more than 4 times per quarter (or was it semester?). I was in the health room at the beginning of lunch and there was a steady stream of kids asking the nurse if they could use the health room’s bathroom. They’re allowed to, but even during lunch, they had to sign in in multiple places and only one person can use it at a time.

On top of all this, at one of my kids’ schools, if you’re late to class, you can’t enter the classroom until 20 minutes into class. Kids who are still out in the halls when a period starts will all be shepherded into a waiting area (I can’t remember if it was the cafeteria or gym or auditorium), where they will have to wait until they all can enter their classrooms en masse 20 minutes late. The purpose is to minimize disruptions, but it also maximizes missed instructional time. My dc has to go back and forth between the third floor of the main building and the portables multiple times per day.

Hopefully the enforcement of these policies will become lax very quickly.

Journalists time to do another story
Parents it's past time to sue
Report to MSDE
Report issue to Dept of Ed

Some of ya'll need to home school. JFC a news story. That's part of the problem as it is that ya'll are constantly trying to get a new story written about the district. If your MS/HS kid can't manage their bladder, 98% of the time that's a them or you issue, not a medical one. Go before school, at lunch, after school, or plan to wait 10 min into class. Your snowflake kid is not the only person in the building. These policies didn't come about because everything was going swimmingly. There are 2000+ kids in these buildings. If you can do better, go up to the school and let them know you'd like an opportunity to take a crack at falling on your face.

My kids can manage their bladders, bowels, and uteruses just fine, thanks. What they can’t manage is balancing their owns needs with those of 2,000 other kids’, all of whom have to follow these ludicrously strict rules.

No one can use the restroom the first or last 10 minutes of a class. You can’t be late to class. Your pass is limited to 10 minutes even if your class is in a portable and it’s a hike to the nearest bathroom. Only one student in a class can use a pass at a time. To obtain the electronic hall pass, you have to request a specific bathroom, the teacher has to check whether that particular bathroom is already at the pre-set capacity threshold, and then they have to approve your pass electronically. How are 2,000 people supposed to navigate this system that depends so heavily on the actions of other people, over which they have no control?

I forgot to mention that they also limit the total number of times you can use the restroom per semester.

Imagine having to ask your boss to sign off on permission for you to use the restroom and your boss responds that you’ve already used up your allotted bathroom breaks.

That’s exactly how teachers live. We don’t even get to go in between classes like your child.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:E hall pass is amazing from a school perspective as we can now limit how many students are in the hallway building wide. Set the cap at 15 and it locks anyone else from submitting a pass when that number is reached. I used it in a different school system and it was very successful.

The only downside from a teacher's perspective is that you will have to temporarily stop instruction to approve the pass but that's no different than having to stop to write a hand written pass.

But what about kid #16 who really needs to go … like now.

They’re SOL. These policies are absurd. You can’t go during the first 10 minutes or last 10 minutes of any class; you can’t go if too many other people already have passes; you can’t go in a bathroom if there’s already a certain number of people in it (even in between classes, so that’s not necessarily an option); the electronic pass is only good for 10 minutes, even if you’re coming from a portable, so even if you’re carrying a traditional pass, if the electronic one expires before you get back to class, you’re in trouble; you can’t go to the bathroom during classroom instruction more than 4 times per quarter (or was it semester?). I was in the health room at the beginning of lunch and there was a steady stream of kids asking the nurse if they could use the health room’s bathroom. They’re allowed to, but even during lunch, they had to sign in in multiple places and only one person can use it at a time.

On top of all this, at one of my kids’ schools, if you’re late to class, you can’t enter the classroom until 20 minutes into class. Kids who are still out in the halls when a period starts will all be shepherded into a waiting area (I can’t remember if it was the cafeteria or gym or auditorium), where they will have to wait until they all can enter their classrooms en masse 20 minutes late. The purpose is to minimize disruptions, but it also maximizes missed instructional time. My dc has to go back and forth between the third floor of the main building and the portables multiple times per day.

Hopefully the enforcement of these policies will become lax very quickly.

Journalists time to do another story
Parents it's past time to sue
Report to MSDE
Report issue to Dept of Ed

Some of ya'll need to home school. JFC a news story. That's part of the problem as it is that ya'll are constantly trying to get a new story written about the district. If your MS/HS kid can't manage their bladder, 98% of the time that's a them or you issue, not a medical one. Go before school, at lunch, after school, or plan to wait 10 min into class. Your snowflake kid is not the only person in the building. These policies didn't come about because everything was going swimmingly. There are 2000+ kids in these buildings. If you can do better, go up to the school and let them know you'd like an opportunity to take a crack at falling on your face.

My kids can manage their bladders, bowels, and uteruses just fine, thanks. What they can’t manage is balancing their owns needs with those of 2,000 other kids’, all of whom have to follow these ludicrously strict rules.

No one can use the restroom the first or last 10 minutes of a class. You can’t be late to class. Your pass is limited to 10 minutes even if your class is in a portable and it’s a hike to the nearest bathroom. Only one student in a class can use a pass at a time. To obtain the electronic hall pass, you have to request a specific bathroom, the teacher has to check whether that particular bathroom is already at the pre-set capacity threshold, and then they have to approve your pass electronically. How are 2,000 people supposed to navigate this system that depends so heavily on the actions of other people, over which they have no control?

I forgot to mention that they also limit the total number of times you can use the restroom per semester.

Imagine having to ask your boss to sign off on permission for you to use the restroom and your boss responds that you’ve already used up your allotted bathroom breaks.

That’s exactly how teachers live. We don’t even get to go in between classes like your child.

This.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How was it?
The good?
The bad?
The ugly?

Beautiful weather
Getting up earlier!

I’m very happy about how this week went. Some minor hiccups at my school, but overall, I think we’re finally exiting the worse pandemic after effects.

After the kids were dismissed, we were all exhausted, but most of us had positive things to say about the week. I got a couple nice emails from parents a bit after 5 pm.

I’m looking forward to next week.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:E hall pass is amazing from a school perspective as we can now limit how many students are in the hallway building wide. Set the cap at 15 and it locks anyone else from submitting a pass when that number is reached. I used it in a different school system and it was very successful.

The only downside from a teacher's perspective is that you will have to temporarily stop instruction to approve the pass but that's no different than having to stop to write a hand written pass.

Building on this since I can't edit the original post, it was also great because as a highly data driven teacher, it calculates how long each student is out of the classroom so I can collect that data and use it when communicating with parents to justify a student's performance. "Yes Mrs. Jones I understand you are upset with your child having a D in my class but the data indicates they have spent the equivalent of 3 whole class periods in the hallway and bathroom this marking period."

Why can't that same data be captured on a sign in sign out sheet/clipboard in the classroom?

By the end of the average school day, you have 30+ kids who had passes. Now you have to track Larla Jones across 40 pieces of paper rather than looking at one e-pass report. It’s a smarter use of adult time.

Parents should also have the ability to see how many hall passes their kid uses each day.

[Anonymous]

The bathroom thing is the perfect example of parents being out of touch. They know their own single sweet child at home, and have no concept of thousands of teens in a building, many of whom are actively seeking to get out of doing work by wandering the halls, vaping, and messing around. These are the same parents who are furious when bathrooms are closed because kids have torn fixtures off the walls and clogged toilets with paper towels. Teachers live and teach in the real world. Trust them to tell you what it’s like.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:E hall pass is amazing from a school perspective as we can now limit how many students are in the hallway building wide. Set the cap at 15 and it locks anyone else from submitting a pass when that number is reached. I used it in a different school system and it was very successful.

The only downside from a teacher's perspective is that you will have to temporarily stop instruction to approve the pass but that's no different than having to stop to write a hand written pass.

But what about kid #16 who really needs to go … like now.

They’re SOL. These policies are absurd. You can’t go during the first 10 minutes or last 10 minutes of any class; you can’t go if too many other people already have passes; you can’t go in a bathroom if there’s already a certain number of people in it (even in between classes, so that’s not necessarily an option); the electronic pass is only good for 10 minutes, even if you’re coming from a portable, so even if you’re carrying a traditional pass, if the electronic one expires before you get back to class, you’re in trouble; you can’t go to the bathroom during classroom instruction more than 4 times per quarter (or was it semester?). I was in the health room at the beginning of lunch and there was a steady stream of kids asking the nurse if they could use the health room’s bathroom. They’re allowed to, but even during lunch, they had to sign in in multiple places and only one person can use it at a time.

On top of all this, at one of my kids’ schools, if you’re late to class, you can’t enter the classroom until 20 minutes into class. Kids who are still out in the halls when a period starts will all be shepherded into a waiting area (I can’t remember if it was the cafeteria or gym or auditorium), where they will have to wait until they all can enter their classrooms en masse 20 minutes late. The purpose is to minimize disruptions, but it also maximizes missed instructional time. My dc has to go back and forth between the third floor of the main building and the portables multiple times per day.

Hopefully the enforcement of these policies will become lax very quickly.

Journalists time to do another story
Parents it's past time to sue
Report to MSDE
Report issue to Dept of Ed

Some of ya'll need to home school. JFC a news story. That's part of the problem as it is that ya'll are constantly trying to get a new story written about the district. If your MS/HS kid can't manage their bladder, 98% of the time that's a them or you issue, not a medical one. Go before school, at lunch, after school, or plan to wait 10 min into class. Your snowflake kid is not the only person in the building. These policies didn't come about because everything was going swimmingly. There are 2000+ kids in these buildings. If you can do better, go up to the school and let them know you'd like an opportunity to take a crack at falling on your face.

My kids can manage their bladders, bowels, and uteruses just fine, thanks. What they can’t manage is balancing their owns needs with those of 2,000 other kids’, all of whom have to follow these ludicrously strict rules.

No one can use the restroom the first or last 10 minutes of a class. You can’t be late to class. Your pass is limited to 10 minutes even if your class is in a portable and it’s a hike to the nearest bathroom. Only one student in a class can use a pass at a time. To obtain the electronic hall pass, you have to request a specific bathroom, the teacher has to check whether that particular bathroom is already at the pre-set capacity threshold, and then they have to approve your pass electronically. How are 2,000 people supposed to navigate this system that depends so heavily on the actions of other people, over which they have no control?

I forgot to mention that they also limit the total number of times you can use the restroom per semester.

Imagine having to ask your boss to sign off on permission for you to use the restroom and your boss responds that you’ve already used up your allotted bathroom breaks.

That’s exactly how teachers live. We don’t even get to go in between classes like your child.

Kids don't go either. Mine rush to the bathroom as soon as they get in barely saying hi. Many of the bathrooms are still locked. They cannot find an open one in the few minutes between classes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The bathroom thing is the perfect example of parents being out of touch. They know their own single sweet child at home, and have no concept of thousands of teens in a building, many of whom are actively seeking to get out of doing work by wandering the halls, vaping, and messing around. These are the same parents who are furious when bathrooms are closed because kids have torn fixtures off the walls and clogged toilets with paper towels. Teachers live and teach in the real world. Trust them to tell you what it’s like.

We know and if you have an issue with our kids, we expect you to reach out or if we reach out respond and tell us the truth. We cannot do anything if we don't know about it. Our school discipline got more lax this year as the admin refuses to stand up to the kids. Blame them, not us. Admin needs to be monitoring the hall or hire more security. And, have consequences. Kids should not be allowed to leave campus because admin doesn't care. Kids should not be allowed uber delivery all day long either.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The bathroom thing is the perfect example of parents being out of touch. They know their own single sweet child at home, and have no concept of thousands of teens in a building, many of whom are actively seeking to get out of doing work by wandering the halls, vaping, and messing around. These are the same parents who are furious when bathrooms are closed because kids have torn fixtures off the walls and clogged toilets with paper towels. Teachers live and teach in the real world. Trust them to tell you what it’s like.

Please, these new restrictions were not devised by teachers. I appreciate that administrators and MCPS officials are in a terrible position because between vaping, drug dealing/use, sexual assault, vandalism, Tik Tok challenges, and skipping class, students get into all kinds of trouble in the restrooms, and it’s not like you can place staff members or surveillance cameras in restrooms to monitor activity. How are schools supposed to keep students from misbehaving in restrooms? I don’t have the answer, but because human bodies don’t excrete waste only when it’s convenient, these policies may not be enforceable. If there were perfect adherence to all of these policies, there would be a spike in students soiling themselves.

Fortunately, these combined new policies are so rigid that there will inevitably be a drop-off in compliance by both teachers and students. There will be some teachers who find the new policies unduly burdensome. There will be some students who will exploit weaknesses or loopholes in the system. Teachers will make exceptions for students they trust will behave appropriately.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The bathroom thing is the perfect example of parents being out of touch. They know their own single sweet child at home, and have no concept of thousands of teens in a building, many of whom are actively seeking to get out of doing work by wandering the halls, vaping, and messing around. These are the same parents who are furious when bathrooms are closed because kids have torn fixtures off the walls and clogged toilets with paper towels. Teachers live and teach in the real world. Trust them to tell you what it’s like.

Please, these new restrictions were not devised by teachers. I appreciate that administrators and MCPS officials are in a terrible position because between vaping, drug dealing/use, sexual assault, vandalism, Tik Tok challenges, and skipping class, students get into all kinds of trouble in the restrooms, and it’s not like you can place staff members or surveillance cameras in restrooms to monitor activity. How are schools supposed to keep students from misbehaving in restrooms? I don’t have the answer, but because human bodies don’t excrete waste only when it’s convenient, these policies may not be enforceable. If there were perfect adherence to all of these policies, there would be a spike in students soiling themselves.

Fortunately, these combined new policies are so rigid that there will inevitably be a drop-off in compliance by both teachers and students. There will be some teachers who find the new policies unduly burdensome. There will be some students who will exploit weaknesses or loopholes in the system. Teachers will make exceptions for students they trust will behave appropriately.

And yet parents will blame teachers that their child experienced discomfort by waiting 10 min to go to the restroom. At the same time, the teachers who drops compliance will be blamed for their child vaping or being SA’d in a bathroom.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The bathroom thing is the perfect example of parents being out of touch. They know their own single sweet child at home, and have no concept of thousands of teens in a building, many of whom are actively seeking to get out of doing work by wandering the halls, vaping, and messing around. These are the same parents who are furious when bathrooms are closed because kids have torn fixtures off the walls and clogged toilets with paper towels. Teachers live and teach in the real world. Trust them to tell you what it’s like.

It sounds like youre put of.touch. children who can do well, do well. If a child is using the bathroom as an excuse to shirk work, perhaps you should intervene to actually help that student rather than punishing the next child.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What happen if kid has anxiety issues or bowel constipation issue or kid is on menstrual cycle? 10 minutes pass is crazy includes walk back and forth to classroom?

Calm yourself down anxious person. Teachers are not dummies. I’m a teacher and if a kid has a true emergency, of course I would tell them to sprint to the nearest bathroom and forget about the stupid pass. This is not the military. There are common sense exceptions to every school rule

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The bathroom thing is the perfect example of parents being out of touch. They know their own single sweet child at home, and have no concept of thousands of teens in a building, many of whom are actively seeking to get out of doing work by wandering the halls, vaping, and messing around. These are the same parents who are furious when bathrooms are closed because kids have torn fixtures off the walls and clogged toilets with paper towels. Teachers live and teach in the real world. Trust them to tell you what it’s like.

It sounds like youre put of.touch. children who can do well, do well. If a child is using the bathroom as an excuse to shirk work, perhaps you should intervene to actually help that student rather than punishing the next child.

The reality is kids will adapt. Parents are making this into more than it needs to be. This is not the first time there have been bathroom rules or rule changes that are different to what human beings are use to. They will adapt. I had a teacher in HS who had a similar requirement. Surprise surprise I made it through the year. Teachers have been only giving out a certain number of passes per quarter for a long time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The bathroom thing is the perfect example of parents being out of touch. They know their own single sweet child at home, and have no concept of thousands of teens in a building, many of whom are actively seeking to get out of doing work by wandering the halls, vaping, and messing around. These are the same parents who are furious when bathrooms are closed because kids have torn fixtures off the walls and clogged toilets with paper towels. Teachers live and teach in the real world. Trust them to tell you what it’s like.

We know and if you have an issue with our kids, we expect you to reach out or if we reach out respond and tell us the truth. We cannot do anything if we don't know about it. Our school discipline got more lax this year as the admin refuses to stand up to the kids. Blame them, not us. Admin needs to be monitoring the hall or hire more security. And, have consequences. Kids should not be allowed to leave campus because admin doesn't care. Kids should not be allowed uber delivery all day long either.

Some teachers think if they couldn't get a reply from Juan's father, they think all parents aren't responsive. It's true that some kids will put their own phone number or email under their parents' info. But majority of families will want to hear from their kid's teachers than not hear from them. If Larlo is misusing bathroom pass during your class, tell Larlo's parents!