After a long, virtually distant summer, roughly 166,000 students begin to enter their login credentials into MyMCPS Classroom on an early Monday morning. It was a historically new start to the first day of school for Montgomery County Public School students.
Typically buses would be picking up students at bus stops and parents would be dropping off kids at school. However, on Aug. 31, the streets were silent and Zoom was buzzing with action.
Upon logging int0 MyMCPS Classroom on the first day, MCPS students were faced with a system glitch due to a problem with the digital service provider.
MyMCPS Classroom, or Canvas, is a platform that is used to check grades, classes, class schedules and links to live Zoom classes.
Because of this glitch, staff and students were forced to seek alternative methods to attend their first 9 a.m. Zoom meetings, such as finding links in their emails and search history, and using other devices.
After 9 a.m., once everyone settled into their first Zoom class the MyMCPS Classroom issue was resolved. After the unexpected incident, the rest of the days’ classes didn’t have an issue anymore.
For distance learning, lunch breaks for MCPS middle and high school students are 75 minutes long. Elementary school lunch breaks are 90 minutes long. During these lunch breaks, there are food sites throughout the county where students who need meals can go pick them up.
During distance learning, the schedule consists of the following changes: Mondays are A-days in which periods 1, 2, 3 and 4 meet along with 15-minute breaks between each period. Tuesdays are B-days in which periods 5, 6, 7 and homerooms meet with 15 minutes breaks between each period. Wednesdays are called “Typical Wednesdays” in which students can have virtual check-ins with teachers, Thursdays are A-days and Fridays are B-days.
A typical school day before the coronavirus consisted of a seven-period schedule each day and 45-minute lunch breaks.
The MCPS Board of Education decided over the summer to proceed with school’s going virtual due to COVID-19 and the potential risks that follow.
A community update that was sent from MCPS said “the safest choice for our district is to remain in a virtual-only instructional model throughout the first semester-January 29, 2021; or until state and local officials determine conditions in our county allow for students to return safely after the first semester.”
This statement will be followed until the end of the first semester unless reconsidered throughout the semester and decided otherwise.
Beginning the 2020-2021 school year virtually would’ve never been expected, however, during these unprecedented times, virtual school had to occur to stop the spread of COVID-19.
Article by Margaret Georgiev of Walter Johnson High School
Photo courtesy of Montgomery Blair High School Principal Renay C. Johnson