Thread by @dav_and_a_doge, good afternoon, folks! sorry for the delay, i was taking my ap [...]

good afternoon, folks! sorry for the delay, i was taking my ap european history test. i have no idea how it went, since i’m typing up this thread in advance, but please take a moment to pray for my grades before continuing down into this mess of a board meeting

we are slated to go EIGHT HOURS today, so y’all better buckle up cuz this is not gonna be a fun ride

my final comment before i get into this is that the board HAS to stop holding meetings during the school day... students and staff are BOTH dependent upon your decisions here

ok so i’m not watching rn but i can confirm that jack smith read a couple resolutions about honorifics to the board which passed unanimously, possibly after a slightly off-color comment from rebecca smondrowski

fourteen people testified, all of them appear to be videos

first up is amyla yuth, a high school senior, who complains about the struggles of online learning, says students feel “helpless”, asks for a safe return to school for the sake of all students

next we have rachel barold, a seventh grader at pyle, who wants a safe return to school - talks about stress levels, learning, and social interactions as reasons why we have to go back into schools in january

she says “our teachers don’t teach us, they just yell at us to keep our cameras on” and says virtual learning is not conducive to learning homegirl making POINTS

btw as a fellow student who testifies a lot, PLEASE DO IT

the board needs to hear from US more than anybody else

lavanya sithanandam, an mcps parent and pediatrician who serves largely low income students, talks about the negative impact that virtual learning has had on students, calls these health impacts far worse than the threat of the virus

fourth is some kid who looks an awful lot like me and shares my name, grade, and school; yells at the board for not knowing what is going on inside their schools, speaks of incredible expectations being placed on students, asks for grading reforms and mental health protections

michael chiswick-patterson, an mcps parent, talks about his issues with the failure of leadership from mcps, wants students in classrooms as much as possible, says that we are being far too cautious, argues nobody is supporting this decision from MCPS and that science disagrees

i feel like im missing out in this thread bc everybody testifying is actually making sense and i can’t tear their feeble little arguments to shreds the way i usually can

helen barold, a cardiologist in rockville who has an MA in public health and is a parent, says parents are having health conditions over the stress of online learning, reminds them that if it weren’t safe physicians wouldn’t be advocating for it, says reopening metrics must chnge

bistu ebrahim, a parent of mcps students including kids with autism, gives a brief anecdote about how miserable online learning has been for kids with special needs

she’s so respectful in her video

now i feel bad for slandering the board except i don’t bc shebra evans cannot continue to admit i’m making points and then never act on them

cameron lang, a 6th graded at eastern, is arguing that students need to go back to in person learning and all i can think is “of course her older brother goes to blair

”

y’all some NERDS

ben wisniewski, a teacher in the autism program at rockville HS, asks that we stick to our plan and implement it as soon as possible

jessica hasson, a licensed clinical psychologist, says there have been massive increases in referrals for students, says students have started failing their classes, kids are having nightmares, hallucinations, and starting to self harm, says mcps has to open

idk who this “anika seth” girl is but apparently she’s a senior at blair and wants to talk about policy ACF, sexual harassment, wants the board to increase protections for students as much as possible, has more details in written testimony

she also congratulates dixon on her final board meeting, since anika is a jeanette stan (which to be fair, who isn’t shes the best)

tara guretzky, a pediatric optometrist, says students have to come back, there are vision problems cropping up through virtual learning (extensive screen time)

gordon groisser, an orthodontist, continues this trend of healthcare professionals saying it’s safe to reopen

i have to say it’s really cool that so many different healthcare professionals have come together here

anyways finally lisa menter, a parent, says it’s not safe to go back to in person learning and the way she looks her kid is either churchill, whitman, or bcc cluster

last tweet they’re letting me send before i’m live:

i testified at this meeting as i’ve been doing for months, and for once kevin dougherty did not

LETS GO I WON BABEYYYYYY

alrighty i’m back and watching on 1.5x speed to catch up to live i’m assuming that everything i said would happen has done so as expected

the lovely folks at @blairsilverfish have a dav-style tweet for you all https://twitter.com/blairsilverfish/status/1326222474003046401

https://twitter.com/blairsilverfish/status/1326222474003046401

derek turner is giving us an update on covid metrics, says we are “very high risk of transmission”, several MD school systems had to close for covid reasons recently, and our metrics for reopening HAVE NOT CHANGED despite all of the testimony

according to CDC metrics, “we are screwed” or something along those lines

o’neill asks about finding a group of health officials to consult, basically proposing bypassing health officer Gayles here

smith says we will “take that under advisement”

apparently our fave becca smondrowski is at the beach today, which means she probably won’t be giving us hour long rambling tangents this week

we’re noting that because our school district is so big, there are different sections of the county with different covid rates and i suppose it’s possible we might open only some schools given how they really don’t want to centrally lead anything here

smith says “we cannot ignore our health officials but we must get back to school as soon as possible” so idk what that means and tbh neither does he

so smith confirms we may open the county at large without some specific schools if covid requires that

i have finally caught up to live, smith is saying that the plan is to measure reopening against “county averages” in response to smondrowski’s question about reopening with only the few safest schools

also smith is bouncing in his seat like a twelve year old boy about to ask out his crush

lmaooooo the board members still don’t know how zoom works so when evans asks for ppl to “put your thumbs up if you have a question” they don’t do the reaction they physically raise their thumb

somebody is here to talk about our social emotional supports for re-entry; if they look anything like they do for virtual learning then they just straight up won’t exist

ah yes sorry i forgot our “psychoeducational lessons” are adequate for dealing with my depression thank you for reminding me of your hard work

apparently school psychologists have been doing things? yeah no they have not but thx for trying

and tbh even if they HAD been there’s no way we can justifiably have one psychologist per school (which is a policy, usually we have FEWER THAN THAT)

our operating budget is TOO BIG to justify this

ooh funky fresh their virtual mental health resources for us are an awareness week and a video series thanks mcps

oooooooh wOw “well being matters” thank you mcps will you change the grading system and reduce our workloads then please

ayo mcps when i testified on “increasing mental health productions by taking radical action” this was NOT WHAT I MEANT

ayo mcps 20k people looking at your mental health week website does NOT MEAN YOU ARE TAKING CARE OF US WHAT IS THIS WHAT IS THIS WHAT IS THIS

i have literally never been this mad at the board. never.

the presenter alleges we started doing direct actions including virtual individual counseling in october which A) is way later in the school year than that needed to start and B) have ANY OF YOU heard about that because come on

mcps continues to think your counselors do anything, apparently.

this presenter also thanks dixon for her service and i’d get emotional if i weren’t so mad

lmao that woman i criticized earlier for being a bethesda parent who acts like all is going well apparently conveniently forgot to mention the fact that she is an mcps teacher

nick is saying he enjoys the social emotional lessons nick shut UP you’re only fueling the fire

he does ask if students can please see psychologists more tho

and says lessons don’t feel sincere which THANK YOU now FIGHT FOR US

cool so that is ultimately a FAT non answer from mcps about our mental health because they don’t really care if you “be well 365” they just have to act like they do

so in addition to the simultaneous and support models i talked about from friday’s board meeting, another reopening model for spring semester is the “direct instructional model”. idk what that is thi

the fact that board members constantly talk about texting each other has made me realize the board probably has a groupchat

possible names for the board gc GO

ooh cool ok so the direct instruction model says that primary instruction is in person. one problem: we won’t use that

so, on a spectrum from most virtual to most in person:

support model, simultaneous instruction model, direct instruction model

dr smith is now also talking about building out an “all virtual model” and tbh we all know this is what we’re gonna get stuck with

smith says he expects we’re stuck with all virtual “for the long term” but my guy do you know how BAD it is

mcps has updated the phase-in sequencing model. biggest shift: grades 11 and 12 in phase 2, grades 9 and 10 now in phase 3

folks i am not paying attention and can you really blame me

there is a resolution for tentative action on approving the framework for a phase-in return which is funny to me because there is no framework worth approving at this point this accomplishes NOTHING

but it does pass unanimously because what content was there to dissent from

board wants to take tentative action on policy IQD, academic eligibility for extracurricular activities, to send it out for public comment but idk what they’re commenting on like is something changing or

ah so the goal is that freshmen come in with a “clean slate” for academic eligibility for first quarter right now, we want to extend that grace period through the first three quarters and then use Q4 to determine sophomore year eligibility

again, requirement for eligibility is a minimum 2.0 gpa

i’m gonna have to tap out of this meeting for a bit because i mistakenly scheduled myself a zoom meeting today but i promise i will come back and catch up on this thread

i’m in a zoom meeting, i’m at the board meeting, i’m taking on too many things during my senior year and need to cut back

alright folks i’m back with approval to move forward on my research project

in the meantime our fav @anikaseth_ (presumably no relation to the girl in her grade at her school with her name who testified earlier) tells me we hope to remove academic eligibility from non-sport ecs

would it be bad if i took on the title “unofficial, unelected, and largely unempowered smob” cuz like that’s my job nowadays

Latest Threads Unrolled: