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The two most active threads yesterday — the Fairfax County Public Schools boundary changes thread and the Jennifer Lopez thread — were ones that I've already discussed and will, therefore, skip today. The next most active thread was titled, "Cuts" and posted in the "Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS)" forum. This thread was started five days ago by a poster complaining that Montgomery County Public Schools had conducted a "midnight massacre" and cut about 100 teaching positions. The poster warned others to get ready for bigger classes and asked why this is not a bigger story. The first issue with this thread is that there was no source provided for the original poster's allegation. This led some posters to doubt that it was real. Other posters accepted it as fact, but attempted to justify the cuts. One argument was that while positions were being cut, many of them were currently unfilled. If there is a current teacher in the position, that teacher will be offered an opportunity to transfer to another school. As such, these are not job losses. Contrary to this, some posters said that actual layoffs are in the works in some cases. Another argument was that in a school system of 14,000 teachers, 100 teachers being forced to transfer to different positions is not really that significant. Soon enough reports of positions being cut at posters' schools arrived and provided some evidence of the veracity of the original poster's claim. Discussion then turned to what might be cut other than teaching positions. The main target was the MCPS central office which poster after poster criticized as bloated and filled with high-earning staffers that either do little or lack competence. Two days ago, the Board of Education held a meeting to discuss the school system's budget. According to posts in the thread, teachers were barred from entering the meeting. When a small group managed to push their way in and attempted to start a protest, the meeting was recessed and after the break teachers were again prevented from attending. Based on teacher reactions in the thread, these cuts — whether of positions or employees — are one more factor contributing to already high levels of frustration among teachers. There are many warnings that more teachers will leave rather than put up with increasingly difficult work circumstances. As one poster wrote, "MCPS trying this after arguably the worst year most of us have ever had… is just laughable." The poster then went on to say, "This is going to be the straw that broke the camels back for A LOT of teachers in the county … good luck next year when there’s no one there to staff their huge classes."