Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Well, we should be concerned:

Fears as more children falling ill in latest US Covid surge and school approaches

https://www.yahoo.com/news/fears-more-children-falling-ill-175443937.html

"Warning that virtual learning that kids have experienced for more than a year is “really bad for their development”, Collins urged that “we ought to be making every effort to make sure they can be back in the classroom. And the best way to do that is to be sure that masks are worn by the students, by the staff, by everybody.”"

Good thing MCPS has a mask requirement!

Masks are better than nothing but no one is addressing the fact that we have very large numbers of students together in one building not distanced which in any other situation is not recommended.

Anonymous wrote:Many schools remained open last year through out the country. Right now red states with a high case rates are not even questioning the opening of schools for in-person. What is wrong with the DC area patents? Our area has high vaccination rate plus people are in general cautious. Why can’t we just let our kids go to school ? Why do we have to make this so difficult for mcps that they think about backtracking in person school?
Kids have been in camps all summer. In groups of 25. Yes the counselors were vaccinated and the kids remained safe. We have to try to give our kids a normal school year .. as normal as possible. Stop the hysteria and fear mongering.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

That makes sense that administrators will make decisions on lunch since each school is different, but where is their guidance? For example, is distancing 3 feet or 6 feet? I don't know the answer, it just seems to me whatever you're trying to roll out to hundreds of schools, and there should be some kind of plan or guidance. Maybe they have written it up, but not made it available to the public?

If you found out that the guidance was 6 feet, what would you do differently?
If you found out that the guidance was 3 feet, what would you do differently?
If you found out that the guidance was not to bother with distancing, what would you do differently?

Anonymous wrote:Many schools remained open last year through out the country. Right now red states with a high case rates are not even questioning the opening of schools for in-person. What is wrong with the DC area patents? Our area has high vaccination rate plus people are in general cautious. Why can’t we just let our kids go to school ? Why do we have to make this so difficult for mcps that they think about backtracking in person school?
Kids have been in camps all summer. In groups of 25. Yes the counselors were vaccinated and the kids remained safe. We have to try to give our kids a normal school year .. as normal as possible. Stop the hysteria and fear mongering.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Well, we should be concerned:

Fears as more children falling ill in latest US Covid surge and school approaches

https://www.yahoo.com/news/fears-more-children-falling-ill-175443937.html

"Warning that virtual learning that kids have experienced for more than a year is “really bad for their development”, Collins urged that “we ought to be making every effort to make sure they can be back in the classroom. And the best way to do that is to be sure that masks are worn by the students, by the staff, by everybody.”"

Good thing MCPS has a mask requirement!

Anonymous wrote:Well, we should be concerned:

Fears as more children falling ill in latest US Covid surge and school approaches

https://www.yahoo.com/news/fears-more-children-falling-ill-175443937.html

Anonymous wrote:Well, we should be concerned:

Fears as more children falling ill in latest US Covid surge and school approaches

https://www.yahoo.com/news/fears-more-children-falling-ill-175443937.html

Anonymous wrote: What is wrong with the DC area patents? Our area has high vaccination rate plus people are in general cautious. Why can’t we just let our kids go to school ? Why do we have to make this so difficult for mcps that they think about backtracking in person school?

Anonymous wrote:

That makes sense that administrators will make decisions on lunch since each school is different, but where is their guidance? For example, is distancing 3 feet or 6 feet? I don't know the answer, it just seems to me whatever you're trying to roll out to hundreds of schools, and there should be some kind of plan or guidance. Maybe they have written it up, but not made it available to the public?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

As well useful stuff like how they plan to do lunches:

"The school system will continue with bagged lunches for the school year. Students who wear a mask at school
will eat their meals six feet of physical distance apart from other students. Modifications to the lunch schedule
and locations for meal services will be determined by the school principal based on the needs of the school.
The cafeteria and classrooms may be used, as necessary."

I'm not sure why there is so much opposition to having a plan. An imperfect plan is better than no plan to me. This is an organization with 160k students and 20k staff members. Should an organization that large really operate without a plan?

There is a plan. The plan is: 100% capacity, five days a week, with masks, and the Virtual Academy. Does MCPS really need to produce a special document to tell you that school administrators will be involved in decisions about how to conduct lunch?

So there's a plan about lunch, and it's been communicated to all staff and administrators, but not parents?

No. I think you're mixing up two things.

1. Allegany County's wordy plan, which includes the information that school administrators will be involved in decisions about how to conduct lunch.
2. The reality in MCPS, which is that school administrators are involved in decisions about how to conduct lunch.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

As well useful stuff like how they plan to do lunches:

"The school system will continue with bagged lunches for the school year. Students who wear a mask at school
will eat their meals six feet of physical distance apart from other students. Modifications to the lunch schedule
and locations for meal services will be determined by the school principal based on the needs of the school.
The cafeteria and classrooms may be used, as necessary."

I'm not sure why there is so much opposition to having a plan. An imperfect plan is better than no plan to me. This is an organization with 160k students and 20k staff members. Should an organization that large really operate without a plan?

There is a plan. The plan is: 100% capacity, five days a week, with masks, and the Virtual Academy. Does MCPS really need to produce a special document to tell you that school administrators will be involved in decisions about how to conduct lunch?

So there's a plan about lunch, and it's been communicated to all staff and administrators, but not parents?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Given the recent surge and how delta has changed everything, I think all bets are off for this fall but they aren't going to announce anything since the situation is still very fluid.

Exactly.

All the posters making fun of others for not having the "foresight" to apply for the VA are unreasonable. Most of us want to send our kids in-person.

We are asking for an update on the Covid-19 plans:
1. mitigation measures during lunch or other unmasked indoor activities,
2. new details on upgraded safety precautions given Delta,
3. and plan B if we're forced into a more prolonged closure.

1. Lunch is school specific.
2. There are very likely none. Any pre-Delta mitigation measures are what they could pull off. If they couldn’t do it then, they can’t do it now. Concurrent/hybrid isn’t happening.
3. Clearly temporary DL, but I’m sure they’ll try to avoid for as long as they can.

The answers are rather obvious.

I disagree. Lunch solutions SHOULD NOT be school-specific. There should be a system-wide plan for outdoor lunches and Central Office can use federal funds to invest in tents, tables and chairs.
There should be information how how exactly they've upgraded their air filtration systems. There should be confirmation of how they're going to deal with discipline issues regarding masks, sanitizing procedures, testing and contact tracing, etc. And regarding temporary distance learning, if that's option B, then they must organize something rapidly and tell us now because it's likely to happen after 2 weeks of school, when cases explode.

There is nothing obvious about it.

Posters who wave away all concerns are just being willfully contrarian. If your workplace was so full of people in close quarters all the time, with hundreds of unvaccinated people unmasked in the cafeteria during your lunch hour, and you hadn't heard a peep from management, you'd be livid!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

As well useful stuff like how they plan to do lunches:

"The school system will continue with bagged lunches for the school year. Students who wear a mask at school
will eat their meals six feet of physical distance apart from other students. Modifications to the lunch schedule
and locations for meal services will be determined by the school principal based on the needs of the school.
The cafeteria and classrooms may be used, as necessary."

I'm not sure why there is so much opposition to having a plan. An imperfect plan is better than no plan to me. This is an organization with 160k students and 20k staff members. Should an organization that large really operate without a plan?

There is a plan. The plan is: 100% capacity, five days a week, with masks, and the Virtual Academy. Does MCPS really need to produce a special document to tell you that school administrators will be involved in decisions about how to conduct lunch?