Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There sure are a lot of people on here who think they know better than county leaders, doctors, public health experts, school administrators, and teachers. I don’t know what the right answer is, but neither do you.

I know that kids need to go to school.

And I know that a child's right to an education does not supersede the rights of teachers, custodians, cafeteria workers, bus drivers, and instructional aides to a safe working environment. We want school back in session too. But meaningful protocols to mitigate the spread of the virus need to be in place. Unfortunately, if a school is overcrowded they will have to reduce density by establishing different cohorts of students who physically attend school on different days. There is no other way around it-we can't build and staff new schools to accommodate all the students.

I know that the benefits of having school outweigh the costs of having school. By a lot.

Also, having students physically attend school on different days is a completely unfeasible solution for most families.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There sure are a lot of people on here who think they know better than county leaders, doctors, public health experts, school administrators, and teachers. I don’t know what the right answer is, but neither do you.

I know that kids need to go to school.

And I know that a child's right to an education does not supersede the rights of teachers, custodians, cafeteria workers, bus drivers, and instructional aides to a safe working environment. We want school back in session too. But meaningful protocols to mitigate the spread of the virus need to be in place. Unfortunately, if a school is overcrowded they will have to reduce density by establishing different cohorts of students who physically attend school on different days. There is no other way around it-we can't build and staff new schools to accommodate all the students.

Anonymous wrote:There sure are a lot of people on here who think they know better than county leaders, doctors, public health experts, school administrators, and teachers. I don’t know what the right answer is, but neither do you.

I know that kids need to go to school.

There sure are a lot of people on here who think they know better than county leaders, doctors, public health experts, school administrators, and teachers. I don’t know what the right answer is, but neither do you.

If I was in high school-I would have LOVED not having to go to actual physical school. I HATED high school . This would have been a dream come true and I probably would do better academically online. That being said high school kids have all their fundamental skills already and are perfectly capable of doing all their work independently.

Elementary and even young middle school(6th and maybe 7th graders) are still learning fundamental skills (reading, writing, basic math etc...). And younger elementary students need support to learn this. They are not capable of being completely responsible for their own education like a high schooler is.

I do think all grades should be back in school in the fall but at the very least elementary and middle NEED to be back in school in the fall.

I wouldn't read anything into that. That's expected, not many people would care.

MCPS just sent out their weekly update:
https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/publicinfo/community/school-year-2019-2020/coronavirus-update-20200607.html

Summer school that starts in 5 weeks, will be online only for high schoolers (no word on lower grades).

Just trying to read the tea leaves here...

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The data is very encouraging. https://coronavirus.maryland.gov/ The positivity rate dropped from 27% to 7.6%, number of currently hospitalized dropped from 1700 to 1000, number of death dropped from more than 50 to 9 over about a month.
And we still have almost 3 months until school starts. Planning to keep schools closed is totally unacceptable. Other areas/countries are planning to have students in class earlier than usual to make up for the lost instruction. I agree that if schools still do not open for ALL students in MoCo, it will not be swallowed easily by public.

Here's data by county:
https://phpa.health.maryland.gov/Documents/Positivity%20by%20Jurisdiction.pdf

MoCo has a 10.8% positive rate, 3rd highest in the state.

My thinking is that MoCo will make a more restrictive decision compared to many MD counties (except PG and Baltimore), because the numbers and rates are so high comparatively.

The MoCo data dashboard says it’s 12% (using three-day average): https://montgomerycountymd.gov/HHS/RightNav/Coronavirus-data.html

In less than 2 weeks, it will be less than 8%. In less than 4 weeks it will be less than 5%. By the end of July, it will be less than 3%. By the end of August, it will be less than 1%. This assumes MoCo continues to open up. Save this post.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The data is very encouraging. https://coronavirus.maryland.gov/ The positivity rate dropped from 27% to 7.6%, number of currently hospitalized dropped from 1700 to 1000, number of death dropped from more than 50 to 9 over about a month.
And we still have almost 3 months until school starts. Planning to keep schools closed is totally unacceptable. Other areas/countries are planning to have students in class earlier than usual to make up for the lost instruction. I agree that if schools still do not open for ALL students in MoCo, it will not be swallowed easily by public.

Here's data by county:
https://phpa.health.maryland.gov/Documents/Positivity%20by%20Jurisdiction.pdf

MoCo has a 10.8% positive rate, 3rd highest in the state.

My thinking is that MoCo will make a more restrictive decision compared to many MD counties (except PG and Baltimore), because the numbers and rates are so high comparatively.

The MoCo data dashboard says it’s 12% (using three-day average): https://montgomerycountymd.gov/HHS/RightNav/Coronavirus-data.html

Anonymous wrote:The data is very encouraging. https://coronavirus.maryland.gov/ The positivity rate dropped from 27% to 7.6%, number of currently hospitalized dropped from 1700 to 1000, number of death dropped from more than 50 to 9 over about a month.
And we still have almost 3 months until school starts. Planning to keep schools closed is totally unacceptable. Other areas/countries are planning to have students in class earlier than usual to make up for the lost instruction. I agree that if schools still do not open for ALL students in MoCo, it will not be swallowed easily by public.

This is the key. There is really almost no chance, barring some kind of crazy spike which is very unlikely considering how the numbers have gone thus far, that school will not start in three months.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The data is very encouraging. https://coronavirus.maryland.gov/ The positivity rate dropped from 27% to 7.6%, number of currently hospitalized dropped from 1700 to 1000, number of death dropped from more than 50 to 9 over about a month.
And we still have almost 3 months until school starts. Planning to keep schools closed is totally unacceptable. Other areas/countries are planning to have students in class earlier than usual to make up for the lost instruction. I agree that if schools still do not open for ALL students in MoCo, it will not be swallowed easily by public.

Here's data by county:
https://phpa.health.maryland.gov/Documents/Positivity%20by%20Jurisdiction.pdf

MoCo has a 10.8% positive rate, 3rd highest in the state.

My thinking is that MoCo will make a more restrictive decision compared to many MD counties (except PG and Baltimore), because the numbers and rates are so high comparatively.

They are not so high comparatively. MoCo's positivity rate follows Maryland's positivity rate (with the same percentage) by about 1 to 2 weeks later. In fact without MoCo improving, it would be hard for Maryland to improve.

Anonymous wrote:The data is very encouraging. https://coronavirus.maryland.gov/ The positivity rate dropped from 27% to 7.6%, number of currently hospitalized dropped from 1700 to 1000, number of death dropped from more than 50 to 9 over about a month.
And we still have almost 3 months until school starts. Planning to keep schools closed is totally unacceptable. Other areas/countries are planning to have students in class earlier than usual to make up for the lost instruction. I agree that if schools still do not open for ALL students in MoCo, it will not be swallowed easily by public.

Here's data by county:
https://phpa.health.maryland.gov/Documents/Positivity%20by%20Jurisdiction.pdf

MoCo has a 10.8% positive rate, 3rd highest in the state.

My thinking is that MoCo will make a more restrictive decision compared to many MD counties (except PG and Baltimore), because the numbers and rates are so high comparatively.

The data is very encouraging. https://coronavirus.maryland.gov/ The positivity rate dropped from 27% to 7.6%, number of currently hospitalized dropped from 1700 to 1000, number of death dropped from more than 50 to 9 over about a month.
And we still have almost 3 months until school starts. Planning to keep schools closed is totally unacceptable. Other areas/countries are planning to have students in class earlier than usual to make up for the lost instruction. I agree that if schools still do not open for ALL students in MoCo, it will not be swallowed easily by public.

^*NOT a direct democracy

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If this is true, I think the county should be more transparent. I will put my kid in private school is that is the case. It even rent somewhere and temporarily move to an open district or state. My kids are suffering not being in school emotionally academically and mentally. Kids are not built for social isolation and sacrificing them for adults who can take care of themselves is unacceptable.

How can we verify if this is true or not?

E-mail your county council members and ask them to ask MCPS.

County Council has no control over MCPS, except to approve their budget. MCPS is independent. Email your Board of Ed member.. but don't hold your breath. My experience has been their attitude is the know what's better for us than we do.

Exactly. That's why you should e-mail the county council to ask them to ask MCPS.

By the way, the BoE members are elected to make decisions for us. That's their function. That's what they're there for. It's a representative democracy, a direct democracy.