Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My rising sophomore did AMAZING! Like everyone she did virtual MCPS in 6th except for the last 6 weeks, did half of seventh before being admitted for suicidal ideation and attempts, missed all of eighth while at a therapeutic school, and came home last June. She started ninth with a safety plan and not knowing a single person. She made friends, enjoyed her teachers, and just graduated from therapy last week. Her grades were As and Bs but that wasn’t the priority.

I'm so happy for you and your child!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Tough year for my ninth grader too. What was challenging for us was the many different rules teachers had, many of which seemed totally inconsistent with the McPS reputation of “oh, stuff is rretakable, etc.”. Examples:

Child was sick for an entire week. Came back and trying to make up tests from 7 classes at lunch, while still recovering. One teacher had a sjngle day for test makeup. Kid missed it and was given a zero on the test, no retake.

Lots of teachers with No ippprtunity for late turn in of Hw, even with a 504. If you forget to turn it in at start of class, it’s a zero.

A couple of teachers who didn’t put grades into gradebook until day before interim grades. Realized then that she didn’t have an important assignment my kid thought he had turned in, but no chance to turn in late because it’s already interim deadline.

One teacher who was just …. Mean and arbitrary. A bunch of kids dropped class and a bunch of parents have complained and I think teacher is in a disciplinary process but it made for a really hard year with a lot of mental energy expended trying to avoid minimize conflict with teacher and figure out their expectations.

In general, I think McPS is pretty good but it is really a lot to deal with…

Yes! Yes! All of this! You captured it.
If you have a kid with executive functioning issues, you are screwed. My kid has a 504 and had all of these same experiences.
I have friend with no complaints bc their kids are self sufficient in this way. I get it, I have one of those too. But my other kid is not like that.
Get an EF coach. Seriously best decision we made. But again this relies on parents to put in the time to help with content and pay for external resources.

Have you kid schedule to take the Resource class. Then they can get help with this.

Anonymous wrote:My rising sophomore did AMAZING! Like everyone she did virtual MCPS in 6th except for the last 6 weeks, did half of seventh before being admitted for suicidal ideation and attempts, missed all of eighth while at a therapeutic school, and came home last June. She started ninth with a safety plan and not knowing a single person. She made friends, enjoyed her teachers, and just graduated from therapy last week. Her grades were As and Bs but that wasn’t the priority.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My rising sophomore did AMAZING! Like everyone she did virtual MCPS in 6th except for the last 6 weeks, did half of seventh before being admitted for suicidal ideation and attempts, missed all of eighth while at a therapeutic school, and came home last June. She started ninth with a safety plan and not knowing a single person. She made friends, enjoyed her teachers, and just graduated from therapy last week. Her grades were As and Bs but that wasn’t the priority.

I'm so happy for you and your child!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Tough year for my ninth grader too. What was challenging for us was the many different rules teachers had, many of which seemed totally inconsistent with the McPS reputation of “oh, stuff is rretakable, etc.”. Examples:

Child was sick for an entire week. Came back and trying to make up tests from 7 classes at lunch, while still recovering. One teacher had a sjngle day for test makeup. Kid missed it and was given a zero on the test, no retake.

Lots of teachers with No ippprtunity for late turn in of Hw, even with a 504. If you forget to turn it in at start of class, it’s a zero.

A couple of teachers who didn’t put grades into gradebook until day before interim grades. Realized then that she didn’t have an important assignment my kid thought he had turned in, but no chance to turn in late because it’s already interim deadline.

One teacher who was just …. Mean and arbitrary. A bunch of kids dropped class and a bunch of parents have complained and I think teacher is in a disciplinary process but it made for a really hard year with a lot of mental energy expended trying to avoid minimize conflict with teacher and figure out their expectations.

In general, I think McPS is pretty good but it is really a lot to deal with…

Yes! Yes! All of this! You captured it.
If you have a kid with executive functioning issues, you are screwed. My kid has a 504 and had all of these same experiences.
I have friend with no complaints bc their kids are self sufficient in this way. I get it, I have one of those too. But my other kid is not like that.
Get an EF coach. Seriously best decision we made. But again this relies on parents to put in the time to help with content and pay for external resources.

Anonymous wrote:My rising sophomore did AMAZING! Like everyone she did virtual MCPS in 6th except for the last 6 weeks, did half of seventh before being admitted for suicidal ideation and attempts, missed all of eighth while at a therapeutic school, and came home last June. She started ninth with a safety plan and not knowing a single person. She made friends, enjoyed her teachers, and just graduated from therapy last week. Her grades were As and Bs but that wasn’t the priority.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It was a tough one because mcps doesn't support students.
It shouldn't have been tough.
Spend your summer mentally and emotionally ally preparing for 3 worse years.

How did it not support your student this year?

Mcps operates under the theory that children are adults. There is a classroom. As many students can be squeezed into that classroom as space allows. Classes are as large as some college classes. If your student is motivated, intelligent, has adult like executive functioning skills and had the social support and financial resources to take care of any short comings that prevent them from doing well- then they will do well
If not- screw you, you lazy pos!

Wow! This has not been our experience at all. DS has disabilities and while I overall think MCPS sucks for special education, this is just so inaccurate. DS was never in a class as big as a college class. 30 kids? Sure. 32? Yep. But have you seen the size of college classes? He had kind and caring teachers in the majority of classes over freshman and sophomore year. Were there some duds? You bet. I can think of a math teacher who didn’t believe he had a disability and wanted him to transfer out. He got a D. The next semester his counselor made sure he had a supportive teacher and he turned that math grade around. Most teachers were very kind and patient. He was a mess at the start of freshman year. Missing work. Poor grades. Just lost! His teachers offered extra help. Made sure he had his accommodations. Gave him encouragement. He went from a C student freshman year to an A student sophomore year and he will tell you it’s because of his teachers and counselor. They spent the time to support him and cheer him on. MCPS has its shortcomings, especially at the top, but you are fooling yourself if you think that you won’t find that same ineptitude everywhere.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Tough year for my ninth grader too. What was challenging for us was the many different rules teachers had, many of which seemed totally inconsistent with the McPS reputation of “oh, stuff is rretakable, etc.”. Examples:

Child was sick for an entire week. Came back and trying to make up tests from 7 classes at lunch, while still recovering. One teacher had a sjngle day for test makeup. Kid missed it and was given a zero on the test, no retake.

Lots of teachers with No ippprtunity for late turn in of Hw, even with a 504. If you forget to turn it in at start of class, it’s a zero.

A couple of teachers who didn’t put grades into gradebook until day before interim grades. Realized then that she didn’t have an important assignment my kid thought he had turned in, but no chance to turn in late because it’s already interim deadline.

One teacher who was just …. Mean and arbitrary. A bunch of kids dropped class and a bunch of parents have complained and I think teacher is in a disciplinary process but it made for a really hard year with a lot of mental energy expended trying to avoid minimize conflict with teacher and figure out their expectations.

In general, I think McPS is pretty good but it is really a lot to deal with…

Yes! Yes! All of this! You captured it.
If you have a kid with executive functioning issues, you are screwed. My kid has a 504 and had all of these same experiences.
I have friend with no complaints bc their kids are self sufficient in this way. I get it, I have one of those too. But my other kid is not like that.
Get an EF coach. Seriously best decision we made. But again this relies on parents to put in the time to help with content and pay for external resources.

The funny thing is most people complain that teachers are too lenient with all the retakes etc. No matter what MCPS does you just can't please everyone.

Anonymous wrote:Nah it must be a parent at WJ

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Tough year for my ninth grader too. What was challenging for us was the many different rules teachers had, many of which seemed totally inconsistent with the McPS reputation of “oh, stuff is rretakable, etc.”. Examples:

Child was sick for an entire week. Came back and trying to make up tests from 7 classes at lunch, while still recovering. One teacher had a sjngle day for test makeup. Kid missed it and was given a zero on the test, no retake.

Lots of teachers with No ippprtunity for late turn in of Hw, even with a 504. If you forget to turn it in at start of class, it’s a zero.

A couple of teachers who didn’t put grades into gradebook until day before interim grades. Realized then that she didn’t have an important assignment my kid thought he had turned in, but no chance to turn in late because it’s already interim deadline.

One teacher who was just …. Mean and arbitrary. A bunch of kids dropped class and a bunch of parents have complained and I think teacher is in a disciplinary process but it made for a really hard year with a lot of mental energy expended trying to avoid minimize conflict with teacher and figure out their expectations.

In general, I think McPS is pretty good but it is really a lot to deal with…

Yes! Yes! All of this! You captured it.
If you have a kid with executive functioning issues, you are screwed. My kid has a 504 and had all of these same experiences.
I have friend with no complaints bc their kids are self sufficient in this way. I get it, I have one of those too. But my other kid is not like that.
Get an EF coach. Seriously best decision we made. But again this relies on parents to put in the time to help with content and pay for external resources.

The funny thing is most people complain that teachers are too lenient with all the retakes etc. No matter what MCPS does you just can't please everyone.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It was a tough one because mcps doesn't support students.
It shouldn't have been tough.
Spend your summer mentally and emotionally ally preparing for 3 worse years.

How did it not support your student this year?

Mcps operates under the theory that children are adults. There is a classroom. As many students can be squeezed into that classroom as space allows. Classes are as large as some college classes. If your student is motivated, intelligent, has adult like executive functioning skills and had the social support and financial resources to take care of any short comings that prevent them from doing well- then they will do well
If not- screw you, you lazy pos!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Tough year for my ninth grader too. What was challenging for us was the many different rules teachers had, many of which seemed totally inconsistent with the McPS reputation of “oh, stuff is rretakable, etc.”. Examples:

Child was sick for an entire week. Came back and trying to make up tests from 7 classes at lunch, while still recovering. One teacher had a sjngle day for test makeup. Kid missed it and was given a zero on the test, no retake.

Lots of teachers with No ippprtunity for late turn in of Hw, even with a 504. If you forget to turn it in at start of class, it’s a zero.

A couple of teachers who didn’t put grades into gradebook until day before interim grades. Realized then that she didn’t have an important assignment my kid thought he had turned in, but no chance to turn in late because it’s already interim deadline.

One teacher who was just …. Mean and arbitrary. A bunch of kids dropped class and a bunch of parents have complained and I think teacher is in a disciplinary process but it made for a really hard year with a lot of mental energy expended trying to avoid minimize conflict with teacher and figure out their expectations.

In general, I think McPS is pretty good but it is really a lot to deal with…

Yes! Yes! All of this! You captured it.
If you have a kid with executive functioning issues, you are screwed. My kid has a 504 and had all of these same experiences.
I have friend with no complaints bc their kids are self sufficient in this way. I get it, I have one of those too. But my other kid is not like that.
Get an EF coach. Seriously best decision we made. But again this relies on parents to put in the time to help with content and pay for external resources.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It was a tough one because mcps doesn't support students.
It shouldn't have been tough.
Spend your summer mentally and emotionally ally preparing for 3 worse years.

MCPS supports students. MCPS doesn't coddle students. Teach your kid self-advocacy skills.

Not all children are capable of learning to advocate for themselves but thank you for reinforcing the earlier post about mcps being a great place for students who don't need any help.

Anonymous wrote:Tough year for my ninth grader too. What was challenging for us was the many different rules teachers had, many of which seemed totally inconsistent with the McPS reputation of “oh, stuff is rretakable, etc.”. Examples:

Child was sick for an entire week. Came back and trying to make up tests from 7 classes at lunch, while still recovering. One teacher had a sjngle day for test makeup. Kid missed it and was given a zero on the test, no retake.

Lots of teachers with No ippprtunity for late turn in of Hw, even with a 504. If you forget to turn it in at start of class, it’s a zero.

A couple of teachers who didn’t put grades into gradebook until day before interim grades. Realized then that she didn’t have an important assignment my kid thought he had turned in, but no chance to turn in late because it’s already interim deadline.

One teacher who was just …. Mean and arbitrary. A bunch of kids dropped class and a bunch of parents have complained and I think teacher is in a disciplinary process but it made for a really hard year with a lot of mental energy expended trying to avoid minimize conflict with teacher and figure out their expectations.

In general, I think McPS is pretty good but it is really a lot to deal with…