Maryland State BOE
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Anonymous
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Information from yesterday's meeting.
http://marylandpublicschools.org/stateboard/Documents/2020/0824/RecoveryPlan.pdf They are meeting again today. State is pushing for 3.5 hours of synchronous learning per day. |
Anonymous
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Grading
All local school systems will return to traditional/normal grading procedures with the start of the 2020-2021 school year. |
Anonymous
Is that minimum, or maximum? |
Anonymous
Minimum - most schools have more, including MCPS. PreK - 2 - 4.75 hr Grade 3 -5 - 4.75 hr Grade 6 -8 - 4.00 hr Garde 9 - 12 - 4.00 hr |
Anonymous
Article I read yesterday stated that State BOE was concerned that there are large disparities between school districts when it comes to the number of hours of synchronous instruction. Some districts have very little, while others have much more like MCPS. They want to see minimum hours of synchronous instruction time for all school districts. |
Anonymous
I'm not sure it's "more" in many (if not most) schools. The middle/high school schedule is based on 8 periods but many schools only have 7 and/or count lunch as a full period. That means 3 hours on two days per week and 4 hours on the other two days. With a few exceptions, I don't think these students have sync learning on Wednesdays either. If MD says 17.5 hours a week of sync instruction, and some 7 period schools are scheduling 14 hours (7 classes each meeting twice a week), that's a non-trivial difference. |
Anonymous
| Don't you think that if the State BOE was planning to mandate a certain hours of synchronous instruction, they should have done so in June? |
Anonymous
They probably didn't realize that there would be a large variety in school plans. Which counties have less than 3.5 hours daily? I would guess that some of the rural counties where there may not be good internet connections could be an issue. |
Anonymous
| Can someone define synchronous leaning? |
Anonymous
Synchronous learning – remote learning that happens in real-time with the interaction between the teacher and students that occurs in a face to face environment or in a virtual classroom setting, i.e. access from home via web conferencing. Asynchronous learning – learning that occurs online without realtime interaction or instruction by an educator. Examples may include but not limited to pre-recorded video lessons, resource videos, assigned readings, and posted assignments. |
Anonymous
Real time google meets/zoom/whatever class led by a teacher. Within that time, though, kids will almost certainly have some independent work, just like they would in the classroom. "OK boys and girls, now that we've learned how to decompose the numbers, try these two problems on your own" |
Anonymous
MCPS does not have more; it has less because there is no live instruction on Wednesdays in secondary school. So 4x4= 16 total hours/week, which = average of 3.25 per day, if you are being generous. Almost all schools only have 7 periods, though, so really it's 2x3 + 2x4 = 14 total hours/wk = 2.8 per day. |
Anonymous
| fFS, at least start ES in person in a couple weeks. They are so behind with their head in the ground here. |
Anonymous
Wow - AACPS doesn't meet that right now, at least for elementary. (I don't have an older kid, so not sure about their schedule) They have 4 hours of synchronous learning per day, but they don't have any on Wednesday, so that doesn't average out to 3.5 per day. From what I've seen, a lot of districts are taking one day each week for "asynchronous learning" |
Anonymous
I had heard there was frustration at the local level that the state didn't set minimum standards early on - so agree it seems strange to mandate this now. The state should have set the standards months ago vs telling each district to "come up with their own plan" - this is the repercussion of that decision. |