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TPES’ public comments regarding in-school screen time

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Before our first PTA meeting of the year, many questions were submitted about screen-time at TPES.

While we ran out of time during the meeting to tackle these questions, the school has responded to these inquiries in this Dolphin Digest.

As a primary school, TPES places an intentional focus on hands-on, multi-sensory learning. We share your commitment to ensuring that digital devices serve as purposeful tools rather than passive distractions. I want to acknowledge that our curriculum does have numerous technology components such as instructional slides and videos that are used along with teacher led instruction and read alouds, or video clips that provide context around concepts being taught; however, we emphasize direct teacher-led instruction, collaborative engagement, and physical learning materials.

Direct device use such as Chromebooks are intended to supplement instruction in very limited windows; such as required diagnostic assessments or short, focused station rotations for skills practice, while the vast majority of core instruction remains paper, book, and teacher-led or through collaborative engagement.

As MCPS conducts its comprehensive technology review in response to the Board of Education’s recent resolution, our leadership team and teachers will continue evaluating classroom technology practices. To maintain equity and effective classroom management, our school utilizes the district mandated curriculum rather than providing individualized default “no-technology” learning tracks for individual students or classes. However, we are actively working with our teachers to ensure daily screen time remains limited and aligned with the developmental needs of our young learners.

If you have further questions or didn’t feel like your question was answered fully, don’t hesitate to continue the conversation in WhatsApp!

P.S. Psssst… if you’ve read this far, react in WhatsApp with the ‘laptop’ emoji 💻

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8 PTA Meeting changes (you gave feedback, we listened)

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You gave us honest feedback – the good, the bad and the ugly.

And we took action on it!

Here are some changes to PTA Meetings moving forward.

1. “Any time there were multiple people unmuted there was echo.” “The echos were frustrating” “Lots of echos. It would be nice if the host could mute everyone.”

Yeah, this was totally my bad.

Long story short, I figured out the issue ~10 minutes into the meeting and it shouldn’t have been an issue the last ~50 minutes.

And now that I got that figured out once, I should be able to avoid that entirely in future meetings.

2. “Lack of clarity between slides on what pertained to TPES and what pertained to PBES.”

We’ve had some space in the bottom-left corner of slides so we added a little area so you know if a slide is for TPES, PBES or Everyone.

3. “The lack of PTA presence (from both schools) on screen: this should be a place where we are seeing and recognizing our PTA leadership, not looking at a sea of blank squares like every other impersonal meeting.”

Go off!

If the experience you want is to see more faces, that’s totally cool. We generally recommend the Sidebar view because it allows you to see the shared slides well as well as faces on the left side of the screen but there are other options.

One nice part about platforms like Google Meet is that you can select the view that works best for you.

  • Go with Auto, Tiled or Spotlight views if they better fit your needs
  • At the bottom of these settings, you can also click the toggle next to “Hide tiles without video” to only see those with their cameras on

And yes, everyone is welcome to join with their camera via video but that’s a personal choice we leave to each individual.

4. “Was there simultaneous translation in Spanish and Amharic? If so, I missed that.”

We had some initial slides going rolling through every ~15 seconds before the meeting got started, one of which gave clear instructions on how to turn on translated captions.

I was sorting out some audio issues before the call and wasn’t flipping to this slide as much as I should have.

I also didn’t highlight this slide at all once the meeting started, which I should have!

I’ve moved these slides to all be after the Welcome slide to make sure they’re reviewed explicitly but briefly for everyone.

5. “Harder to find camera and microphone controls on phone version”

They should be in the same place whether you’re joining from a computer, laptop, tablet, mobile browser or mobile app.

Both the camera and microphone controls are always at the bottom of the window!

6. “Doesn’t work with all browsers (Firefox)”

Often when Google Meet doesn’t work with Firefox, it’s because you have an active browser extension that’s causing a conflict.

Try disabling some of your old or unused extensions and/or opening the meet link in an Incognito Window and see if that helps!

How to Fix Google Forms "Internal Error"

And if all else fails, some good options for joining right on your phone are the Google Meet iOS app or Android app.

7. “Wouldn’t let me access with primary Gmail account, had to use another.”

This is often an account indexing issue. This sounds complicated but it’s usually a simple fix.

  • Look at the top-right corner of the pre-meeting green room. Confirm the displayed profile photo and email address match your primary account.
  • Click Switch account on that pre-join screen to explicitly select your primary email before clicking “Join.”
  • Instead of multiple logins in one browser window, create separate Chrome Profiles (click your browser avatar at the top menu bar > Add Profile) for each Google account to isolate credentials and cookies completely.

And if all else fails, some good options for joining right on your phone are the Google Meet iOS app or Android app.

8. “I hate Google meet. Can’t do emojis for comments in the chat.”

Not sure if this was sent in jest or not but it gave me a good chuckle lol.

And you sure can! Just click inside the chat field and press Win + . (on PC) or Cmd + Ctrl + Space (on Mac).

Everyone is also welcome to spam emoji react in our next TPA Meeting.

But on a more serious note, I understand everyone has their preference of virtual meeting apps. PBES, TPES & both PTAs have come to a consensus that we’ll be trying out Google Meet this year. We’ll be sticking with that decision for the time being.

Thanks for reading this far. See you at the next PTA Meeting!

P.S. Psssst… if you’ve read this far, react in WhatsApp with the ‘Ear’ emoji 👂

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How to drive around the school (and everywhere really)

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Last year, the PTA received multiple reports of reckless driving and unnecessary congestion during pick up and drop off.

Let’s all do our part to make sure every all TPES families can navigate the neighborhood safely and complete pick up and drop off without too much of a hassle.


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1. Don’t stop here during drop off, pick up or anytime!

If you do, it makes it super hard for other cars to make this turn and you’ll cause a huge backup.

REMEMBER: please pull up as far as possible.


Traffic jam!No traffic jam!


2. Don’t turn left when exiting the school (8:15AM – 4:30PM)

I know, this is an annoying one as it makes most of us go the long way around.

But with buses and the majority of traffic coming the other direction, turning left here creates all sorts of congestion on Holly Ave and at the intersection of Holly Ave & Philadelphia Ave.

REMEMBER: Please turn right.




3. Don’t miss this hard-to-see crosswalk

Last year we had reports of people speeding down Holly Ave outside the school.

There’s a crosswalk here that’s honestly difficult to see with the small hill just before it.

REMEMBER: Please don’t speed up Holly Ave (or anywhere around the school).




4. Full stops at this intersection. Always.

Students, parents and caregivers are crossing these intersections constantly during drop off and pick up times.

We can all agree we’ve seen too many rolling stops and people rushing through this intersection.

REMEMBER: Please come to full stops and be extra vigilant about pedestrians at Holly Ave & Philadelphia Ave.




5. Watch out for flashing crosser lights

This intersection at Philadelphia Ave & Old Philadelphia Ave has flashing lights that activate when cross walkers hit the button to cross.

As someone who often bikes through this intersection with his family on our way to school, I see too many drivers who don’t stop when these lights are blinking.

REMEMBER: Please be extra vigilant about flashing lights and pedestrians at Holly Ave & Philadelphia Ave and give families space to cross.



Pssst… if you’ve read this far, react to the WhatsApp message with the ‘vertical traffic light’ emoji 🚦

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