Well we don’t know which schools are red yellow or green anymore because MCPS isn’t being transparent. There is no leadership. The truth is that metric isn’t useful. Schools aren’t magical places with low transmissions. We know our community transmission is high. So first we need to identify the issues and then solve them.

Issues-

Some parents want their kids remote now. Since state is under emergency it’s not an unexcused absence. We need a plan though to keep these kids engaged.

Community has high transmission. The school benchmark of 5 percent is not really meaningful particularly with self reporting got it. However throwing our heads under a pillow is not either. We need to plan for the contingency of closing schools temporarily. At some point for either public health reasons or staffing shortages we may have to close schools. I’m not a public health expert so I’m not going to say what that threshold should be (or if we’ve hit it) but we should be having the discussion. MCPS can’t just say we are waiting on guideline from state. They need to take leadership. If the event of remote for individual schools or the system how will virtual work?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People should please keep an eye on this national tracker before they come to the conclusion that this is just an MCPS problem:

https://cai.burbio.com/school-opening-tracker/?utm_medium=email&_hsmi=2&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-8di51zkNK2wUD4PgxaZls6-hl05C9JLyDOtQ1jJ_1JTXnbHbzhiLXhLoRqY0Mo9omFEPjMacu4skVIh4xKdZbj9ZXHkg&utm_content=2&utm_source=hs_email

People, schools should be the last essential service to close. Schools have been on winter break for two weeks. Community spread is not happening in schools.

Close bars. Close malls. Close restaurants. Test to stay but don’t close schools.

It was spreading at my child’s school the week before break. They closed early, cancelled an event and let upper class choose to stay home and delay exams.
So BS on your asinine claim.

+1-
How is this claim “community spread is not happening in schools” valid? Are schools exempt from covid spreading? How does covid know? Just bars, malls, and restaurants you say. Interesting.

You do realize that MCPS high school students don’t take exams. Many years ago, when they had exams, they were in January, not December.

Students and staff were off two weeks BEFORE schools were in red. The increase in COVID rates is not because of school transmission. In fact schools require masks and have extra air filtration than malls, bars, and restaurants don’t have. The routine from schools decreases these other activities in addition to travel by staff and students that promote COVID spread.

"The increase in COVID rates is not because of school transmission."

NP. Really?? No fooling???

It wasn't because it couldn't have been.

I can't prove that's the ONLY reason, but it's a pretty big and obvious one!

COVID rates will continue to increase rapidly (because that's what omicron does) while schools are open next week, so what then?

Or are you claiming rates rose more because schools were closed? I think you are, ignoring that those rates increased in the same way or more rapidly in NYC a couple of weeks earlier when schools were open, because that's how omicron works.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People should please keep an eye on this national tracker before they come to the conclusion that this is just an MCPS problem:

https://cai.burbio.com/school-opening-tracker/?utm_medium=email&_hsmi=2&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-8di51zkNK2wUD4PgxaZls6-hl05C9JLyDOtQ1jJ_1JTXnbHbzhiLXhLoRqY0Mo9omFEPjMacu4skVIh4xKdZbj9ZXHkg&utm_content=2&utm_source=hs_email

People, schools should be the last essential service to close. Schools have been on winter break for two weeks. Community spread is not happening in schools.

Close bars. Close malls. Close restaurants. Test to stay but don’t close schools.

It was spreading at my child’s school the week before break. They closed early, cancelled an event and let upper class choose to stay home and delay exams.
So BS on your asinine claim.

+1-
How is this claim “community spread is not happening in schools” valid? Are schools exempt from covid spreading? How does covid know? Just bars, malls, and restaurants you say. Interesting.

You do realize that MCPS high school students don’t take exams. Many years ago, when they had exams, they were in January, not December.

Students and staff were off two weeks BEFORE schools were in red. The increase in COVID rates is not because of school transmission. In fact schools require masks and have extra air filtration than malls, bars, and restaurants don’t have. The routine from schools decreases these other activities in addition to travel by staff and students that promote COVID spread.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People should please keep an eye on this national tracker before they come to the conclusion that this is just an MCPS problem:

https://cai.burbio.com/school-opening-tracker/?utm_medium=email&_hsmi=2&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-8di51zkNK2wUD4PgxaZls6-hl05C9JLyDOtQ1jJ_1JTXnbHbzhiLXhLoRqY0Mo9omFEPjMacu4skVIh4xKdZbj9ZXHkg&utm_content=2&utm_source=hs_email

People, schools should be the last essential service to close. Schools have been on winter break for two weeks. Community spread is not happening in schools.

Close bars. Close malls. Close restaurants. Test to stay but don’t close schools.

It was spreading at my child’s school the week before break. They closed early, cancelled an event and let upper class choose to stay home and delay exams.
So BS on your asinine claim.

+1-
How is this claim “community spread is not happening in schools” valid? Are schools exempt from covid spreading? How does covid know? Just bars, malls, and restaurants you say. Interesting.

DP.

Oh, see, it's because it wasn't possible for community spread to happen in schools, because schools were closed for winter break (and most of last week)! Therefore "it's not happening in schools."



It's easy to say it's not happening when it was prevented from happening. You can't prove otherwise!

(And I'm talking omicron, here. Other variants didn't spread as well in schools as in other places, for a bunch of reasons. But this one is much more contagious, and the populations in schools vs other places are more dissimilar now, in terms of vax status and so on.)

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There is a FB group called PAGES Coalition that has been urging parents and teachers to submit fake positive results to MCPS to force MCPS to "re-evaluate their contribution to this public health crisis and to re-evaluate their choice for Interim Superintendent." Now we don't know what is real and what is fake.

https://twitter.com/OpenMCPS/status/1479057225586982917

I would like PAGES to address this in the group.

I'm in that group, and that was up for a very short period of time. All the comments were pretty unanimously saying "no, don't do that" and the OP agreed and quickly edited the post to remove that part of the post. And then the whole post seems to have been deleted.

If anyone did it at all (I doubt it's more than a handful, if that), it's surely balanced out by the underreporting from 1) anti-virtual parents saying "don't report positive cases" (I have seen that going around on Twitter and on here 2) families who haven't reported because they don't know about the form or haven't bothered to use it; and 3) people who are positive but don't know they're positive because they haven't tested.

I'm not in that PAGES group, but did see that same post, word-for-word, posted in my FB neighborhood group.

So, I believe you that it was taken down quickly. But it was definitely up long enough for some people to copy and paste it around the internet.

But, FWIW, I agree with you. I don't think many people will do that. But its indicative of the larger problem: we can't trust those numbers. At all.

Heck, I've heard some parents complain that the denominators for some schools are even wrong. That the amount of people in the building is actually might higher, by the hundreds.

It's hard to accept any decisions when you KNOW the data used to make the decision is inaccurate

It's getting very close the election-fraud-type discussions here.....


Anyway, did you notice that "green" schools are elementary schools? That's the group that got most recently vaccinated and may have some omicron protection against infection still. Also, some are from economically disadvantaged neighborhoods where it is less likely that somebody has access to a testing center that can deliver a result without having to wait in line for a long time

The "green" and many "yellow" schools on the list are high FARMS schools. I'm going out on a limb here and speculate that the families may not have access to these expensive and hard to find at home rapid tests. There are barriers and we can see it here in red/yellow/green.

One of the green schools is Bradley Hills. Pretty much the furthest MCPS school from a FARMS school that I could imagine. Perhaps these parents are just rigorously testing and actually keeping their kids home. Chances are it’s a lot of SAH and WFH parents who can easily keep their positive case kids home with them without disruption.

You.

Are.

Completely.

Out of touch.

With reality.

Bradley Hills is the ONLY "green" school that is not a high FARMS school, and is clearly most likely a statistical outlier.

Why are you people obsessed with proving that rich white people are the Real Oppressed?

Those schools don't have some sort of extra protection from being "more recently-vaccinated." They are significantly less vaccinated overall, and all ES kids everywhere are very recently fully-vaccinated and "more protected" if that's possible. No one was 2 weeks out from their second shot more than a month ago.

Here's a breakdown for you, since I already did one, since my kid goes to a "green" school.

Green Schools (excepting Bradley Hills ONLY):

Proportion of Schools w/ESOL above 50% -- 5 of 7
Proportion of Schools w/FARMS above 67% -- 6 of 7
Proportion of Schools in Zip Codes in the MC Lowest-Vaccinated Category -- 5 of 7
Proportion of Schools in Silver Spring or Takoma Park -- 6 of 7
Average Black + Hispanic population -- 85.6%

Not only are 6 of 7 in SS/TP, 5 of 7 are practically next to each other. Of those 5, the longest distance between any two is <5 miles. Most are 1-2 miles apart.

Tell me, are you agreeing that poor, non-native English speakers are better, more responsible parents? Because I'll take that!

Or do you think it's also true that they have less access to testing and haven't been well-communicated with?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People should please keep an eye on this national tracker before they come to the conclusion that this is just an MCPS problem:

https://cai.burbio.com/school-opening-tracker/?utm_medium=email&_hsmi=2&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-8di51zkNK2wUD4PgxaZls6-hl05C9JLyDOtQ1jJ_1JTXnbHbzhiLXhLoRqY0Mo9omFEPjMacu4skVIh4xKdZbj9ZXHkg&utm_content=2&utm_source=hs_email

People, schools should be the last essential service to close. Schools have been on winter break for two weeks. Community spread is not happening in schools.

Close bars. Close malls. Close restaurants. Test to stay but don’t close schools.

It was spreading at my child’s school the week before break. They closed early, cancelled an event and let upper class choose to stay home and delay exams.
So BS on your asinine claim.

+1-
How is this claim “community spread is not happening in schools” valid? Are schools exempt from covid spreading? How does covid know? Just bars, malls, and restaurants you say. Interesting.

I hope you're all writing to the BOE members, acting super McKnight, and all your MoCo and state elected officials to express your anger that they are not keeping teachers and students safe, and that provisions MUST be made for teachers and students who wish to protect themselves, while keeping their jobs, and keeping up their grades. This last is particularly critical for high schoolers who need good grades on their transcripts, now that most colleges are test-optional.

We can solve this, people, by compromising. If essential workers depend on open school buildings, then so be it. Let's keep buildings open.

But it is the height of disrespect to other teachers and students that their safety be disregarded in the process!


We need support for teachers and students who do not wish to be inside school buildings right now!!!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People should please keep an eye on this national tracker before they come to the conclusion that this is just an MCPS problem:

https://cai.burbio.com/school-opening-tracker/?utm_medium=email&_hsmi=2&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-8di51zkNK2wUD4PgxaZls6-hl05C9JLyDOtQ1jJ_1JTXnbHbzhiLXhLoRqY0Mo9omFEPjMacu4skVIh4xKdZbj9ZXHkg&utm_content=2&utm_source=hs_email

People, schools should be the last essential service to close. Schools have been on winter break for two weeks. Community spread is not happening in schools.

Close bars. Close malls. Close restaurants. Test to stay but don’t close schools.

It was spreading at my child’s school the week before break. They closed early, cancelled an event and let upper class choose to stay home and delay exams.
So BS on your asinine claim.

My DS attends a "yellow" high school and I just received a call to verify his COVID status and verify test results sent directly to the school attendance secretary match with the countywide form that we also submitted.

I seems like DS's HS is trying to verify if the self-reported numbers are accurate and also to confirm quarantine dates.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There is a FB group called PAGES Coalition that has been urging parents and teachers to submit fake positive results to MCPS to force MCPS to "re-evaluate their contribution to this public health crisis and to re-evaluate their choice for Interim Superintendent." Now we don't know what is real and what is fake.

https://twitter.com/OpenMCPS/status/1479057225586982917

I would like PAGES to address this in the group.

I'm in that group, and that was up for a very short period of time. All the comments were pretty unanimously saying "no, don't do that" and the OP agreed and quickly edited the post to remove that part of the post. And then the whole post seems to have been deleted.

If anyone did it at all (I doubt it's more than a handful, if that), it's surely balanced out by the underreporting from 1) anti-virtual parents saying "don't report positive cases" (I have seen that going around on Twitter and on here 2) families who haven't reported because they don't know about the form or haven't bothered to use it; and 3) people who are positive but don't know they're positive because they haven't tested.

I'm not in that PAGES group, but did see that same post, word-for-word, posted in my FB neighborhood group.

So, I believe you that it was taken down quickly. But it was definitely up long enough for some people to copy and paste it around the internet.

But, FWIW, I agree with you. I don't think many people will do that. But its indicative of the larger problem: we can't trust those numbers. At all.

Heck, I've heard some parents complain that the denominators for some schools are even wrong. That the amount of people in the building is actually might higher, by the hundreds.

It's hard to accept any decisions when you KNOW the data used to make the decision is inaccurate

It's getting very close the election-fraud-type discussions here.....


Anyway, did you notice that "green" schools are elementary schools? That's the group that got most recently vaccinated and may have some omicron protection against infection still. Also, some are from economically disadvantaged neighborhoods where it is less likely that somebody has access to a testing center that can deliver a result without having to wait in line for a long time

The "green" and many "yellow" schools on the list are high FARMS schools. I'm going out on a limb here and speculate that the families may not have access to these expensive and hard to find at home rapid tests. There are barriers and we can see it here in red/yellow/green.

One of the green schools is Bradley Hills. Pretty much the furthest MCPS school from a FARMS school that I could imagine. Perhaps these parents are just rigorously testing and actually keeping their kids home. Chances are it’s a lot of SAH and WFH parents who can easily keep their positive case kids home with them without disruption.

I should have said many, not all.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There is a FB group called PAGES Coalition that has been urging parents and teachers to submit fake positive results to MCPS to force MCPS to "re-evaluate their contribution to this public health crisis and to re-evaluate their choice for Interim Superintendent." Now we don't know what is real and what is fake.

https://twitter.com/OpenMCPS/status/1479057225586982917

I would like PAGES to address this in the group.

I'm in that group, and that was up for a very short period of time. All the comments were pretty unanimously saying "no, don't do that" and the OP agreed and quickly edited the post to remove that part of the post. And then the whole post seems to have been deleted.

If anyone did it at all (I doubt it's more than a handful, if that), it's surely balanced out by the underreporting from 1) anti-virtual parents saying "don't report positive cases" (I have seen that going around on Twitter and on here 2) families who haven't reported because they don't know about the form or haven't bothered to use it; and 3) people who are positive but don't know they're positive because they haven't tested.

I'm not in that PAGES group, but did see that same post, word-for-word, posted in my FB neighborhood group.

So, I believe you that it was taken down quickly. But it was definitely up long enough for some people to copy and paste it around the internet.

But, FWIW, I agree with you. I don't think many people will do that. But its indicative of the larger problem: we can't trust those numbers. At all.

Heck, I've heard some parents complain that the denominators for some schools are even wrong. That the amount of people in the building is actually might higher, by the hundreds.

It's hard to accept any decisions when you KNOW the data used to make the decision is inaccurate

It's getting very close the election-fraud-type discussions here.....


Anyway, did you notice that "green" schools are elementary schools? That's the group that got most recently vaccinated and may have some omicron protection against infection still. Also, some are from economically disadvantaged neighborhoods where it is less likely that somebody has access to a testing center that can deliver a result without having to wait in line for a long time

The "green" and many "yellow" schools on the list are high FARMS schools. I'm going out on a limb here and speculate that the families may not have access to these expensive and hard to find at home rapid tests. There are barriers and we can see it here in red/yellow/green.

One of the green schools is Bradley Hills. Pretty much the furthest MCPS school from a FARMS school that I could imagine. Perhaps these parents are just rigorously testing and actually keeping their kids home. Chances are it’s a lot of SAH and WFH parents who can easily keep their positive case kids home with them without disruption.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There is a FB group called PAGES Coalition that has been urging parents and teachers to submit fake positive results to MCPS to force MCPS to "re-evaluate their contribution to this public health crisis and to re-evaluate their choice for Interim Superintendent." Now we don't know what is real and what is fake.

https://twitter.com/OpenMCPS/status/1479057225586982917

I would like PAGES to address this in the group.

I'm in that group, and that was up for a very short period of time. All the comments were pretty unanimously saying "no, don't do that" and the OP agreed and quickly edited the post to remove that part of the post. And then the whole post seems to have been deleted.

If anyone did it at all (I doubt it's more than a handful, if that), it's surely balanced out by the underreporting from 1) anti-virtual parents saying "don't report positive cases" (I have seen that going around on Twitter and on here 2) families who haven't reported because they don't know about the form or haven't bothered to use it; and 3) people who are positive but don't know they're positive because they haven't tested.

I'm not in that PAGES group, but did see that same post, word-for-word, posted in my FB neighborhood group.

So, I believe you that it was taken down quickly. But it was definitely up long enough for some people to copy and paste it around the internet.

But, FWIW, I agree with you. I don't think many people will do that. But its indicative of the larger problem: we can't trust those numbers. At all.

Heck, I've heard some parents complain that the denominators for some schools are even wrong. That the amount of people in the building is actually might higher, by the hundreds.

It's hard to accept any decisions when you KNOW the data used to make the decision is inaccurate

It's getting very close the election-fraud-type discussions here.....


Anyway, did you notice that "green" schools are elementary schools? That's the group that got most recently vaccinated and may have some omicron protection against infection still. Also, some are from economically disadvantaged neighborhoods where it is less likely that somebody has access to a testing center that can deliver a result without having to wait in line for a long time

The "green" and many "yellow" schools on the list are high FARMS schools. I'm going out on a limb here and speculate that the families may not have access to these expensive and hard to find at home rapid tests. There are barriers and we can see it here in red/yellow/green.

Anonymous wrote:


Anyway, did you notice that "green" schools are elementary schools? That's the group that got most recently vaccinated and may have some omicron protection against infection still. Also, some are from economically disadvantaged neighborhoods where it is less likely that somebody has access to a testing center that can deliver a result without having to wait in line for a long time

I'm personally of the opinion that green is a result of less testing, not less cases. Why less testing? Maybe, younger kids are more asymptomatic or maybe it's access to testing.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There is a FB group called PAGES Coalition that has been urging parents and teachers to submit fake positive results to MCPS to force MCPS to "re-evaluate their contribution to this public health crisis and to re-evaluate their choice for Interim Superintendent." Now we don't know what is real and what is fake.

https://twitter.com/OpenMCPS/status/1479057225586982917

I would like PAGES to address this in the group.

I'm in that group, and that was up for a very short period of time. All the comments were pretty unanimously saying "no, don't do that" and the OP agreed and quickly edited the post to remove that part of the post. And then the whole post seems to have been deleted.

If anyone did it at all (I doubt it's more than a handful, if that), it's surely balanced out by the underreporting from 1) anti-virtual parents saying "don't report positive cases" (I have seen that going around on Twitter and on here 2) families who haven't reported because they don't know about the form or haven't bothered to use it; and 3) people who are positive but don't know they're positive because they haven't tested.

I'm not in that PAGES group, but did see that same post, word-for-word, posted in my FB neighborhood group.

So, I believe you that it was taken down quickly. But it was definitely up long enough for some people to copy and paste it around the internet.

But, FWIW, I agree with you. I don't think many people will do that. But its indicative of the larger problem: we can't trust those numbers. At all.

Heck, I've heard some parents complain that the denominators for some schools are even wrong. That the amount of people in the building is actually might higher, by the hundreds.

It's hard to accept any decisions when you KNOW the data used to make the decision is inaccurate

It's getting very close the election-fraud-type discussions here.....


Anyway, did you notice that "green" schools are elementary schools? That's the group that got most recently vaccinated and may have some omicron protection against infection still. Also, some are from economically disadvantaged neighborhoods where it is less likely that somebody has access to a testing center that can deliver a result without having to wait in line for a long time

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There is a FB group called PAGES Coalition that has been urging parents and teachers to submit fake positive results to MCPS to force MCPS to "re-evaluate their contribution to this public health crisis and to re-evaluate their choice for Interim Superintendent." Now we don't know what is real and what is fake.

https://twitter.com/OpenMCPS/status/1479057225586982917

I would like PAGES to address this in the group.

I'm in that group, and that was up for a very short period of time. All the comments were pretty unanimously saying "no, don't do that" and the OP agreed and quickly edited the post to remove that part of the post. And then the whole post seems to have been deleted.

If anyone did it at all (I doubt it's more than a handful, if that), it's surely balanced out by the underreporting from 1) anti-virtual parents saying "don't report positive cases" (I have seen that going around on Twitter and on here 2) families who haven't reported because they don't know about the form or haven't bothered to use it; and 3) people who are positive but don't know they're positive because they haven't tested.

I'm not in that PAGES group, but did see that same post, word-for-word, posted in my FB neighborhood group.

So, I believe you that it was taken down quickly. But it was definitely up long enough for some people to copy and paste it around the internet.

But, FWIW, I agree with you. I don't think many people will do that. But its indicative of the larger problem: we can't trust those numbers. At all.

Heck, I've heard some parents complain that the denominators for some schools are even wrong. That the amount of people in the building is actually might higher, by the hundreds.

It's hard to accept any decisions when you KNOW the data used to make the decision is inaccurate