More schools expected to move to virtual learning in Montgomery County

School system leaders in Montgomery County are planning to move more schools with high coronavirus infection rates into virtual learning in coming days, as the number of students and staff testing positive climbs amid the surge of the omicron variant.

The update late Friday afternoon came as another difficult week ended in Maryland’s largest school system, which faced mounting pressure to its rethink plans for full-scale in-person education...

...School officials said next steps will be announced during the week of Jan. 18, when they expect to place some schools into virtual learning for 10 calendar days. Parents were asked to report results of at-home rapid tests for their children by Friday...

...Now the school system has stopped posting percentages of student and staff positivity altogether, instead giving daily case counts. But parents and educators, worried about the state of omicron infection in their schools, started doing calculations of their own...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/01/15/montgomery-county-schools-covid-virtual/

"Montgomery Co. Public Schools agreed this spring to [Shear's] idea of deleting the student internet histories from the servers of 3 of its biggest vendors: Alphabet Inc.’s Google, Apple Inc.& GoGuardian"

For Maryland lawyer Bradley Shear, his push to protect the data privacy of children became an obsession three years ago when his son, who was in the second grade, was accused by a teacher of googling a profane song in class.

Mr. Shear was convinced his son landed on the webpage by accident, but it brought to mind a troubling question: How long would this incident stick to his son’s digital record?

Starting next month, he won’t have to worry about it. Mr. Shear convinced his son’s school district to wipe clean most of the digital data that the school and its largest outside vendors keep on more than 162,000 students starting as young as kindergarten. It is among the first school districts in the country to schedule an annual purging of student data.

Mr. Shear, who wants “Data Deletion Week” to go national, says he is worried that information stored on distant servers could come back to harm children who make mistakes on social media or with the apps that have become ubiquitous in classrooms.

“I’m a big believer in having a bad day,” he says. But “we’re entering a phase where there’s no such thing as a second chance” as universities and prospective employers are mining more digital clues when making admissions and hiring decisions.

Data generated in the classroom is becoming a heated front in the battle over digital privacy, but privacy experts say the issue is more complicated than it might seem...

...School officials acknowledge “Data Deletion Week” won’t plug all the privacy holes, noting that Montgomery County teachers and administrators now use roughly 1,000 apps and websites to help organize classrooms and promote new forms of learning, each of which has its own policy for collecting and storing data. The district plans to evaluate contracts with all of them and add to the deletion requirement list. It said it can’t purge all student data; it is required by law to retain some records. Parents and students have the right to request that some data be retained...

https://www.wsj.com/articles/one-parent-is-on-a-mission-to-protect-children-from-digital-mistakes-11562762000

FOX5: Public tolerance for sending students to school in snow lower now than in past, says Montgomery Co.

http://www.fox5dc.com/news/public-tolerance-for-sending-students-to-school-in-snow-lower-now-than-in-past-says-montgomery-co

Members of the Montgomery County Council say they’re taking notice after the American Civil Liberties Union filed suit against Gov. Larry Hogan.

ROCKVILLE – Members of the Montgomery County Council say they’re taking notice after the American Civil Liberties Union filed suit against Gov. Larry Hogan.

The lawsuit, filed Monday, alleges that Hogan’s staff members deleted comments and blocked constituents from viewing his Facebook page.

“The highest purpose of the First Amendment is to protect the right of Americans to engage in political speech and to petition the government to address their concerns," said Deborah Jeon, legal director for the ACLU of Maryland in a statement.

The ACLU says Hogan’s social media staff deleted critical comments and blocked people from viewing the governor’s Facebook page and that this violates the First Amendment’s protection of freedom of speech.

“The immediate access people have has changed so rapidly over the past few years it is hard to keep up with it,” said County Executive Ike Leggeett. “We need to come up with a uniform policy that that public can understand.”

Leggett said there should be different standards for public and private social media pages, saying the County’s official social media accounts are publically funded pages and are held to the same standards as the rest of County government. Leggett said he keeps a personal Facebook page, but said he does not block people or delete comments even though he said his private account is mainly for personal use.

As Leggett does, Council member Tom Hucker (D-5), said he generally does not block people or delete comments. Hucker said he could not remember an instance when he blocked someone or deleted a comment, but said he is not opposed to it completely if it crosses a line...

...“I think he crossed the line by a long way this was just simply a commenter who just disagreed with his policies, they weren’t disparaging, they weren’t vitriolic…they were simply disagreements,” said Riemer of the comments deleted from Hogan’s Facebook page...

http://www.thesentinel.com/mont/news/state/item/5621-aclu-sues-hogan

MCPS Digs Up Asbestos and Former Building at BCC Middle School #2 Site #RockCreekHillsPark

MCPS apparently did not bother to do an Environmental Impact Study on the Rock Creek Hills park site before they began digging for construction of the new BCC Middle School #2.

Did MCPS' construction department simply not want to think about the fact that the lower part of the former school that was on part of this site had simply been covered up by dirt?  

The construction crew has now excavated part of the former school building and found asbestos.
  
What will this added asbestos abatement project and excavation of the former school building add to the cost of this middle school construction project?

After Radon Scandal, Bruce Crispell takes over as Acting Director, MCPS Dept. of Facilities Management

MCPS Dept. of Facilities Management

In December of 2015, James Song was the Director of the MCPS Department of Facilities Management.

As of this week, Bruce Crispell the Director of MCPS Long Range Planning is signing his name as:

Bruce Crispell, Acting Director

Department of Facilities Management

  

In the fall, Councilmember Craig Rice described the lack of radon testing by MCPS as a failure.

In this MyMCMedia Extra video, Montgomery County Councilmember Craig Rice, who chairs the Council’s Education Committee, describes Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) lack of follow up on radon testing in 26 schools and two other school buildings as “a failure” and, he says, “it can’t happen again.”

 

 http://www.mymcmedia.org/councilmember-craig-rice-on-mcps-and-radon-testing-its-a-failure-video/

 

Councilmember Craig Rice also said that his staff had previously asked MCPS for information about radon levels in schools and had been "assured there was not an issue."

Montgomery County Councilmember Craig Rice said he was surprised to learn of elevated radon levels in 26 schools and two MCPS buildings last week. That’s because as the sponsor of a recently passed radon bill, he said, his staff previously asked the school district for information about radon levels and was assured there was not an issue.

Radon Testing Underway in all MCPS Schools

It is not often community leaders and county officials admit to mistakes and oversights. But in a press release sent by Montgomery County Public Schools’ Public Information and Web Services Department on Dec. 6, Interim Superintendent Larry A. Bowers issued a statement in which he apologized to a concerned community for the county’s failure to follow radon testing protocol in numerous cases where tests within MCPS buildings showed elevated levels of the naturally occurring odorless gas linked to lung cancer.
Bowers then announced, “out of an abundance of caution,” plans to retest all schools and buildings within the county to set a new baseline for future reference as the next step “to enhance our overall radon testing and remediation program.” Results are scheduled to be posted on the county’s website as soon as they are received.
Radon is a radioactive gas and exposure to it—which can only be determined through testing—is the second leading cause of lung cancer in America (14,000 deaths per year), according the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)....

...But some parents, such as Simona Haver whose son attends Springbrook High School, are wondering why there would be no immediate mitigation for buildings that have already revealed high levels of radon.
Haver, who admitted she’s begun to feel stonewalled by authorities the more she inquires about her son’s safety, said an attempt was made to comfort her by explaining that children only spend a limited time in the affected classrooms.
“A person of authority told me, they’re only in one of those eight rooms (in our school that showed elevated levels) for 47 minutes every day,” Haver said. “I say, ‘OK, look, let’s look at this under a real microscope. That’s 47 minutes a day, over the last four years, Monday through Friday.’ That equates to 30 full days, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. If you know, going into a facility, that it’s going to cause you lung disease, would you go there for 30 days with the probability? … It’s not a risk at this point, it’s a threat to my child, to the staff and to the administrators.”...

 http://towncourier.com/radon-testing-underway-in-all-mcps-schools/

Sentinel: Board of Ed Drops Media Challenge in Special Education Hearing

   2015 Sentinel December 24 edition by Parents' Coalition of Montgomery County, Maryland

Zuckerman: Sick of Hearing about Fairfax

At last night's Board of Education worksession, MCPS Chief Operating Officer Andrew Zuckerman said he was "sick of hearing" how Fairfax County had so many artificial turf football fields.

Well, Mr. Zuckerman, the MCPS public is sick of MCPS administrators covering up the truth about the cost of artificial turf!

Let's start with this FACT from Fairfax County:

Fairfax County makes each high school booster club commit to paying $15,000 a year as funding for the future replacement costs.  The current model that Fairfax County is using to fund artificial turf fields is not sustainable and so they are looking at options going forward. 

One of the options on the table is to increase the booster club mandatory contribution to $20,000 a year.  

MCPS high school booster clubs on board with raising an additional $20,000 a year to put in the bank for future plastic grass replacement? 

There are many interesting facts in this Fairfax County report, but do not miss the fact that Fairfax pays way less for a plastic grass football field than Montgomery County pays.  Why exactly is it that plastic grass is so much cheaper on the other side of the Potomac River? 

   Fairfax County Artificial Turf Report by Parents' Coalition of Montgomery County, Maryland

Surprise! BOE Finds $1.8 Million, Transfers it to BCC Middle School #2 Project #nootherpriorities?

Do you love surprises?  Well here in Montgomery County we do! Check this out.  The Board of Education just found $1,800,000 dollars in a drawer!  

As there is no priority list for Capital projects, no projects that need Capital Budget funding, no emergency Capital repairs, the Board of Education can spend the money anywhere, anytime, right?

Who knew there was a surplus of $1.8 million sitting around in the Capital Budget?  

Here's the message from parents monitoring the BCC Middle School #2 construction project:  
 

[The Board of Education is] Proposing to CIP TRANSFER $1.8M from the Clarksburg Cluster Elementary School Project "unliquidated surplus account" to build the SHELL of the [BCC Middle School #2] addition to "provide for the future expansion of 12 additional classrooms; bus canopy; brick veneer and ornamental railing for the site retaining walls; and other alternates."  They are classifying the retaining wall brick veneer and railings as "alternates," meaning that they only intended to build concrete walls from the start.  They MIS-LED THE COMMUNITY, because the original plan submitted in the Mandatory Referral stated that the walls would be brick with capstone and iron railing on top, AND that there would be a bus canopy. Now the budget submission to the BOE states this was an "ALTERNATE" plan, along with other items!!  It does not mention what other items are "alternate" that we are not aware of.  This is just another example of how the community has been MIS-LED and LIED TO!!!!!

 

   FY16 Cap Bgt FY15-20 CIP Transfer by Parents' Coalition of Montgomery County, Maryland

[MCPS] ranking system is based on outdated information, marred by factual errors and favors total reconstruction over renovation, according to the July report by...County Council.

The Montgomery County school system plans to rethink its list of which schools are next in line for modernization, after a report that strongly criticized the way those decisions are made.

The ranking system is based on outdated information, marred by factual errors and favors total reconstruction over renovation, according to the July report by the county’s Office of Legislative Oversight, the research arm of the County Council.

Until the report’s release, the school system had intended to keep its list unchanged until at least 2031. But the oversight office found that other large school systems, including Baltimore County, Fairfax County and Dallas, regularly revisit and adjust their construction priorities.

“It’s definitely disturbing,” said council member Tom Hucker (D-Silver Spring). “This doesn’t inspire public confidence.”...

 http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/md-politics/report-prompts-montgomery-to-rethink-its-school-modernization-list/2015/08/09/9af05240-3ac5-11e5-9c2d-ed991d848c48_story.html?hpid=z3

Today at 9:30 AM: Council to Gloss Over MCPS Failure to Protect Children from Sexual Abuse by Staff

Here's what you won't hear discussed today at the Montgomery County Council's Education Committee "briefing" on MCPS Policies and Procedures Related to Child Abuse Allegations.

No one from the Board of Education or MCPS will be put under oath, so truth and facts will not be required. Even the Memorandum from Council staff doesn't give the Council the facts.

Why do Council staff give Councilmembers spin instead of facts?


These facts will not be discussed at the Montgomery County Council today:  

• The Board of Education's Policy on Child Abuse is 27 years out of date. 

• MCPS continues, to this day, to maintain a list of suspected child abusers who are currently IN CLASSROOMS.

• The MCPS work group, that was started in the spring of 2014 (not summer or fall) has not produced a report! The "report" that the Council is being given was written by two MCPS administrators.  Yet, Council staff states in today's Memorandum that the report is from the entire workgroup. Why the fib?

• Note from a parent who attended recent Work Group meetings: The Montgomery County Council Education Committee, chaired by Councilmember Craig Rice will hear the Superintendent's recommendation for addressing Child Sexual Abuse in MCPS. Please note: this recommendation was advised by, but is not the product of, the workgroup - it was presented to the Superintendent before being fully vetted by the workgroup (on which I sit). Furthermore, it does not follow nationally accepted best practices, nor are many of the recommendations based on empirically supported evidence. A major concern I have is with the school-based liaisons - ALL school employees are mandated reporters and should be addressing all suspicions directly with Child Protective Services and Police - not clearing those calls through a liaison. That would be illegal and continue the culture of coverup.
  Also of note: conspicuously absent from the hearing panel is the parent stakeholder representation.
  

Examiner: MontCo school layoffs total 160, not 1,300, council says

Montgomery County Public Schools misled parents and the public about the system's budget needs, county lawmakers said Tuesday. 

School system leaders say they had to eliminate about 1,350 positions during the recession, but they fail to mention they have also added nearly 1,200 positions, both teachers and support staff, Montgomery County Council members said. The net loss of jobs is 160 positions, a drop in work force of about 0.7 percent. 

And for fiscal 2013, which begins July 1, County Executive Ike Leggett has backed the school board's request to add teacher positions, which would give the school system a net of 229.5 more full-time employees than it had in fiscal 2009.

Examiner article continues at this link.