MCPS announced near the start of the year through a community message that the previous 5% threshold for case positivity in a 14-day period would no longer be used as a metric to consider schools’ transition to virtual learning. The county’s response has caused outrage among staff and students, especially due to the recent uptick in positive cases. According to the Washington Post, over 115 schools are currently in the “red” zone for case positivity, which is more than half of the schools in the county.
Hoping to catch the attention of MCPS officials, students from 18 schools across the county engaged in walkouts to protest the school system’s poor learning plan. The efforts have also been branded on social media as “MCPS students for virtual,” and each of the schools partaking in the walkout have created their own pages with updates for their school’s initiative. Although these walkouts can be considered effective in establishing a united front among the student body, they do not have the potential to influence MCPS policy.
The current protests of MCPS’s response to the rising cases have given many students the opportunity to voice their concerns. However, the often low turnouts along with the influx of people who have low regard for the purpose of the walkout and only participate for the opportunity to miss class, make it hard for the walkouts to have any actual effects. For instance, at the Richard Montgomery High School walkout, there were only about 70-80 total students there.
Many are worried that the response from MCPS signifies county officials are unprepared for what could happen next and do not have a plan, but walkouts may not be the most effective way to get MCPS to change their course of action. Walt Whitman High School teacher Mira Chung said “[Waiting for action is] mentally stressful, not only for myself but for the kids.” Students across the county feel the same way, and are advocating for their schools to transition to a two-week virtual learning period out of fear that if case positivity escalates further, MCPS could be forced to face an even longer stretch of online learning.
Richard Montgomery High School junior Aman Tuccori said “We shouldn’t have to choose between our safety and our education,” which is exactly the reason so many students feel it is necessary to temporarily transition to virtual learning until case numbers start to go down. Many students have family members who are elderly or have underlying health problems which make them more susceptible to severe impacts should they contract COVID-19.
Apart from low participation and people who treat walkouts as a joke, there definitely is good that comes from them as they give students a designated time and space to state their concerns that they would not normally have during the school day. For change to actually happen, the power is in numbers. In order for the walkouts to catch the attention of MCPS officials, there needs to be an increase in student participation.
If the student body can show that we find the issue to be of great importance, officials would be more compelled to address the problem than if it is just a small group of students at a few high schools. We have seen the success walkouts have had in the past through their success in influencing county officials to change the names of controversial schools named after confederates. History proves walkouts are successful with the right numbers and messages being sent.
In all, though the walkouts are well-intentioned, they seem to be structured more for the students to be able to express their concerns than they are around the goal of influencing MCPS policy decisions. In order to inspire adequate change, there needs to be more participation from both students and staff so that the message actually gets heard. In the case of temporarily transitioning to online learning, other methods such as writing letters directly to MCPS officials may be much more effective. In unity there is strength and if everyone is not on the same page, it is hard to get MCPS on the same page.
Article by Alexandra Doncheva of Richard Montgomery High School
Photo by Naima Goffney of Richard Montgomery High School