Anonymous wrote:Why? High schools are much larger than MS and HS so it makes sense that they have more cases.

I work in a high school in a different county and the teens are so bold about having parties, maskless get togethers, etc. They feel invincible and behave as such without their families necessarily realizing the exposure. Teens are going to be teens to some extent.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was under the impression that that dashboard was updated every Wednesday and the updates PERCENTAGE totals would be every day at 7. I can’t be the only one. Their communication is misleading at best.

No one knows what's going on or what to expect and it's made worse by communications that appear very clear but in fact were misleading.

Total disaster.

They are literally causing so much anxiety and mental anguish at this point.

I agree it's super frustrating, but I'm not sure what they are supposed to do. Making a decision that allowed parents to plan would be moving to virtual for all. Making case by case decisions means uncertainty. You can't have time to plan and decisions made with up to the minute current data...they do need time to gather the data. Every plan they attempt to put in place draws criticism.

Ok but if they say they will update a particular chart on x day at x time, or that they will send a community wide message on such and such day, send one! Even if it’s to say we are still conferring with dhhs or we are reevaluating our plan based on new cdc guidance or whatever and we apologize that we do not have an operational update to announce. Don’t just pretend you didn’t promise something.

100% this. We know these are difficult days and the landscape keeps shifting daily. What is so stressful to families is that MCPS promises to give daily updates and keep parents informed but then go completely silent at what may be the most uncertain time as cases are spiking. Or make a delayed call to cancel school at 6:30am when they promise 5am and all the neighboring districts have made the call already. This is a very bad sign that they're either overwhelmed or just don't care. I would guess it's the former but I just don't know at this point. They should, as the previous poster suggested, give an update on why the case reports aren't being made available and let parents know there's a plan or the makings of a plan to go virtual or address the safety of the schools. My kids go to two different schools and each one seems to be reporting different things and communications feel a bit rogue.

I found it so strange that they produced something on Wednesday saying that the red-zoned schools would be considered for closing based on issues such as availability of food service workers and absolutely no mention of the consideration of bus services. I can't find it now but I know I read it. Did anybody else see that? I feel so strongly that the inequity of providing transportation to some and not all should be enough in itself to provide virtual instruction automatically and use school resources to help get food to families in need during this time.

I can't find a Wednesday message either, but the original message about the red zone schools did explicitly mention bus services: https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/publicinfo/community/school-year-2021-2022/Community-Update-20220104-final.html

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was under the impression that that dashboard was updated every Wednesday and the updates PERCENTAGE totals would be every day at 7. I can’t be the only one. Their communication is misleading at best.

No one knows what's going on or what to expect and it's made worse by communications that appear very clear but in fact were misleading.

Total disaster.

They are literally causing so much anxiety and mental anguish at this point.

I agree it's super frustrating, but I'm not sure what they are supposed to do. Making a decision that allowed parents to plan would be moving to virtual for all. Making case by case decisions means uncertainty. You can't have time to plan and decisions made with up to the minute current data...they do need time to gather the data. Every plan they attempt to put in place draws criticism.

Ok but if they say they will update a particular chart on x day at x time, or that they will send a community wide message on such and such day, send one! Even if it’s to say we are still conferring with dhhs or we are reevaluating our plan based on new cdc guidance or whatever and we apologize that we do not have an operational update to announce. Don’t just pretend you didn’t promise something.

100% this. We know these are difficult days and the landscape keeps shifting daily. What is so stressful to families is that MCPS promises to give daily updates and keep parents informed but then go completely silent at what may be the most uncertain time as cases are spiking. Or make a delayed call to cancel school at 6:30am when they promise 5am and all the neighboring districts have made the call already. This is a very bad sign that they're either overwhelmed or just don't care. I would guess it's the former but I just don't know at this point. They should, as the previous poster suggested, give an update on why the case reports aren't being made available and let parents know there's a plan or the makings of a plan to go virtual or address the safety of the schools. My kids go to two different schools and each one seems to be reporting different things and communications feel a bit rogue.

I found it so strange that they produced something on Wednesday saying that the red-zoned schools would be considered for closing based on issues such as availability of food service workers and absolutely no mention of the consideration of bus services. I can't find it now but I know I read it. Did anybody else see that? I feel so strongly that the inequity of providing transportation to some and not all should be enough in itself to provide virtual instruction automatically and use school resources to help get food to families in need during this time.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In their Tuesday press conference, MCPS said they would update the red/yellow/green status for each school on a daily basis (see around the 11 minute mark): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2OGy_pTZ0I&t=686s

In the community update email sent on January 2, they said "To keep families updated, throughout January, all members of the MCPS community will receive community update emails on Thursday afternoons, with the most up-to-date information regarding COVID-19 and the steps we are taking to keep students, staff, families and community members safe."

It's really frustrating that they did neither of these things yesterday.

I agree.

And I warned you all before Christmas that this is what we would face if the system didn't pivot to virtual for January. People scoffed, since Omicron is supposed to be milder than Delta, and as usual did not grasp the math that more transmission means a deluge of positive cases and therefore, people out at all levels. Logistics and operations are ALWAYS the Achilles' heel of such organizations. High numbers of Omicron cases was bound to be a mess, since any ordinary stress on the system already leads to a mess at the best of times.

NP. I agree. I also wonder why on earth they didn’t get ahead of this by sending an email around New Year’s to say “we’re aware omicron is skyrocketing and we’re watching the situation, as of now we’re all having school on Monday” and also to realize that there would be a major bus driver shortage a few days later. It really felt like everyone was on vacation until Monday, came back from the tropics, and was surprised to find out about omicron spread and bus driver shortages.

Our lower income elementary seems to be doing ok right now. We were green, now I think we’re a low yellow. A few staff are out, but my kid is in class with her teacher and says there was a sub for her math class. They did math with the sub. She is learning. It clearly isn’t perfect. The buses are messed up but most kids walk, and she reports several classmates out, but it doesn’t seem too bananas over there. I’m grateful her school is still open, since distance learning is terrible for her, and I hope the school can stay this way.

I have another kid at an original “red” school and in virtual. That school has a lot of staff out and two weeks of virtual feels like a wise choice.

I’m not sure I agree that closing down the whole system is necessary. Staying on top of it and communicating with parents sure is, though.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In their Tuesday press conference, MCPS said they would update the red/yellow/green status for each school on a daily basis (see around the 11 minute mark): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2OGy_pTZ0I&t=686s

In the community update email sent on January 2, they said "To keep families updated, throughout January, all members of the MCPS community will receive community update emails on Thursday afternoons, with the most up-to-date information regarding COVID-19 and the steps we are taking to keep students, staff, families and community members safe."

It's really frustrating that they did neither of these things yesterday.

I agree.

And I warned you all before Christmas that this is what we would face if the system didn't pivot to virtual for January. People scoffed, since Omicron is supposed to be milder than Delta, and as usual did not grasp the math that more transmission means a deluge of positive cases and therefore, people out at all levels. Logistics and operations are ALWAYS the Achilles' heel of such organizations. High numbers of Omicron cases was bound to be a mess, since any ordinary stress on the system already leads to a mess at the best of times.

NP. I agree. I also wonder why on earth they didn’t get ahead of this by sending an email around New Year’s to say “we’re aware omicron is skyrocketing and we’re watching the situation, as of now we’re all having school on Monday” and also to realize that there would be a major bus driver shortage a few days later. It really felt like everyone was on vacation until Monday, came back from the tropics, and was surprised to find out about omicron spread and bus driver shortages.

Bethesda Beat write-up of the mess: https://bethesdamagazine.com/bethesda-beat/schools/mcps-stops-updating-its-daily-covid-19-data-after-two-days/

it is sketchy to me that the high schools have so many more positive cases than the ES and MS!! like the teens are facing it!

I think the booster situation is much more likely than "faking" covid positives. Upper MS and lower HS kids are 5-7 months out from having been vaccinated, and we know their resistance is lower than either boosted 16+ kids or the 5-11s who just got vaxxed last month. These are kids who were first eligible to be boosted YESTERDAY, so it makes sense that they are making up a lot of the positives.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In their Tuesday press conference, MCPS said they would update the red/yellow/green status for each school on a daily basis (see around the 11 minute mark): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2OGy_pTZ0I&t=686s

In the community update email sent on January 2, they said "To keep families updated, throughout January, all members of the MCPS community will receive community update emails on Thursday afternoons, with the most up-to-date information regarding COVID-19 and the steps we are taking to keep students, staff, families and community members safe."

It's really frustrating that they did neither of these things yesterday.

I agree.

And I warned you all before Christmas that this is what we would face if the system didn't pivot to virtual for January. People scoffed, since Omicron is supposed to be milder than Delta, and as usual did not grasp the math that more transmission means a deluge of positive cases and therefore, people out at all levels. Logistics and operations are ALWAYS the Achilles' heel of such organizations. High numbers of Omicron cases was bound to be a mess, since any ordinary stress on the system already leads to a mess at the best of times.

This.

People decrying this mess (and I agree it's a huge mess!) didn't seem to realize that a mess is what they were in favor of, if they were opposed to a proactive virtual pivot of a few weeks (YES A FEW WEEKS).

I keep banging this drum-- omicron was always gonna omicron. The choice was between a couple/few weeks of virtual proactively or reactively. No other choice. But of course, when you're reactive, you get this kind of mess on top of everything else.

And again:

Because omicron was always gonna omicron, it doesn't matter if you just knew, deep in your heart, that MCPS would take any opportunity for virtual and spin it into months of virtual, because we were always going to have to pivot eventually anyway.

I'm actually now thinking that whole "I didn't support proactive virtual because you can't trust MCPS to keep it to ~2 weeks" argument is actually a sort of (subconscious) misdirect or a proxy or a sort of euphemism for something else. Again, not consciously, but... Hm.

I do want to go on record here and say thank goodness for snow days!!! The one thing that might (?) delay or... maybe in some cases reduce the actual need for virtual is that this week may have slowed the spread a bit on its own. And in any event, kept kids and staff mostly out of school during the week that case counts were still climbing so high.

I've been saying that a pivot to virtual was inevitable, and I still think it is, but every bit of time we can buy helps that to be less likely and less intensive. It's not quite as if we were closed this week, and certainly 2-4 weeks would be ideal to ride out the worst of omicron, but now in 1-3 weeks we should be in much better shape. I'm glad less exposure and less mishegas happened this week than would have without 3.5 snow days.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In their Tuesday press conference, MCPS said they would update the red/yellow/green status for each school on a daily basis (see around the 11 minute mark): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2OGy_pTZ0I&t=686s

In the community update email sent on January 2, they said "To keep families updated, throughout January, all members of the MCPS community will receive community update emails on Thursday afternoons, with the most up-to-date information regarding COVID-19 and the steps we are taking to keep students, staff, families and community members safe."

It's really frustrating that they did neither of these things yesterday.

I agree.

And I warned you all before Christmas that this is what we would face if the system didn't pivot to virtual for January. People scoffed, since Omicron is supposed to be milder than Delta, and as usual did not grasp the math that more transmission means a deluge of positive cases and therefore, people out at all levels. Logistics and operations are ALWAYS the Achilles' heel of such organizations. High numbers of Omicron cases was bound to be a mess, since any ordinary stress on the system already leads to a mess at the best of times.

I took your warning to heart, Anonymous PP. Thanks for the heads-up!

+2. You did warn us and you were right. I, for one, appreciated it.

Anonymous wrote:In their Tuesday press conference, MCPS said they would update the red/yellow/green status for each school on a daily basis (see around the 11 minute mark): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2OGy_pTZ0I&t=686s

In the community update email sent on January 2, they said "To keep families updated, throughout January, all members of the MCPS community will receive community update emails on Thursday afternoons, with the most up-to-date information regarding COVID-19 and the steps we are taking to keep students, staff, families and community members safe."

It's really frustrating that they did neither of these things yesterday.

Thank you for digging this up. Some of us thought we were crazy. No, just victims of gaslighting.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was under the impression that that dashboard was updated every Wednesday and the updates PERCENTAGE totals would be every day at 7. I can’t be the only one. Their communication is misleading at best.

No one knows what's going on or what to expect and it's made worse by communications that appear very clear but in fact were misleading.

Total disaster.

They are literally causing so much anxiety and mental anguish at this point.

I agree it's super frustrating, but I'm not sure what they are supposed to do. Making a decision that allowed parents to plan would be moving to virtual for all. Making case by case decisions means uncertainty. You can't have time to plan and decisions made with up to the minute current data...they do need time to gather the data. Every plan they attempt to put in place draws criticism.

Ok but if they say they will update a particular chart on x day at x time, or that they will send a community wide message on such and such day, send one! Even if it’s to say we are still conferring with dhhs or we are reevaluating our plan based on new cdc guidance or whatever and we apologize that we do not have an operational update to announce. Don’t just pretend you didn’t promise something.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In their Tuesday press conference, MCPS said they would update the red/yellow/green status for each school on a daily basis (see around the 11 minute mark): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2OGy_pTZ0I&t=686s

In the community update email sent on January 2, they said "To keep families updated, throughout January, all members of the MCPS community will receive community update emails on Thursday afternoons, with the most up-to-date information regarding COVID-19 and the steps we are taking to keep students, staff, families and community members safe."

It's really frustrating that they did neither of these things yesterday.

I agree.

And I warned you all before Christmas that this is what we would face if the system didn't pivot to virtual for January. People scoffed, since Omicron is supposed to be milder than Delta, and as usual did not grasp the math that more transmission means a deluge of positive cases and therefore, people out at all levels. Logistics and operations are ALWAYS the Achilles' heel of such organizations. High numbers of Omicron cases was bound to be a mess, since any ordinary stress on the system already leads to a mess at the best of times.

I took your warning to heart, Anonymous PP. Thanks for the heads-up!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:it is sketchy to me that the high schools have so many more positive cases than the ES and MS!! like the teens are facing it!

Don’t the high schools have more students…??

Kids are self-reporting positive cases.

Blake HS sent everyone home with a test kit Wednesday, and then 52 new cases were reported, presumably from the home tests.