Anyone doing a learning pod for the Fall? Schools are starting 100% online here and I heard about a company that facilitates a teacher for your pod of kids. It's local to me but also can facilitate an e-teacher- Thepupilpod.com
There was an article on pods in the NYT today, it seems like a good solution if you have like minded friends/neighbors. Would be nice to get a break from homeschooling (though ill still have to be a preschool teacher).
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I will be homeschooling two other families with mine (well, remote schooling). I’m a former teacher. One family will pay (a little) and the other family has a young one and will take my baby. I’m very concerned about the equity of homeschool pods so 1) committed to not making cost a factor and 2) committed to leaving them enrolled (virtually) in local schools. It’s not perfect, but I have a medically compromised child and contact with my parents.
I also teach online (which also gives me conflicting feelings about equity, but it allows me to pay the bills), and I know people at my company are facilitating some of these pods.
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@Jess1483: thank you for mentioning the cost and inequality factor in your setup. I read this the other day: https://www.google.ca/amp/s/www.washingtonpost.com/education/2020/07/22/huge-problem-with-education-pandemic-pods-suddenly-popping-up/%3foutputType=amp
And it’s really been on my mind. It’s not feasible for us, we will send our guy to grade 1, but I see these postings pop up especially on the affluent Facebook mom groups in our city. A few weeks ago I thought this was insane, but now it’s becoming more of a conversation since we know our reopening plan in Ontario. Something didn’t sit right with me about these individual pods but I couldn’t put my finger on it until I started reading. Before Covid, our provincial government was putting plans in motion to privatize education and many are fearful this will be the unwanted outcome, going so far as to say their reopening plan is purposeful to encourage enrolment at private schools or pods like this.
I’m interested to hear others replies to this thread as well.
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In theory, it makes sense if you're talking about a small group of families in the same community trying to help each other out. I can see maybe grouping together and taking shifts to help the group of kids on your day(s) to facilitate learning along with their virtual teacher. The other families can then focus on their days "off" to do what they need to do.
But when you look further into it, that's not at all what this is and totally exposes the inequities. It becomes a case of the "haves" and "have nots". One of my friends who also has an incoming kindergartner was exploring all of her options for her DD and talked to a former teacher in our area just to see what this was all about. In our area, to put your child into a pod, it's $20k each for the year and the teacher takes around 5 kids. To me, that's insane. I also have fears of the privatizing of education and agree this will not help that.
I note that not every pod situation is like this and absolutely applaud you, @Jess1483: for thinking about the possible inequities of the situation.
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I've seen a lot of chatter about it, but more about home schooling groups, which TBH I want to no part of
. It seems a lot of families here are choosing to do some version of online learning (we have multiple options here and not all take away funding from schools). But my perception of it was that it was going to be a group of kids moving from house to house, with a parent facilitating, which doesn't sound like a good option for us. We're choosing in-person schooling for various reasons, but the whole district will likely do online learning for the first 9 week grading period.
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We are one of the families seriously considering this model. I teach at a private school that plans on opening 5 days/week. My son goes to a public school that has him in school 2 days/week and may close at any time. Usually, my parents help us with childcare but they will be unable to do that this year due to the Covid risk. My husband is working from home right now but may get called back into the office in September. We don't know.
For our own childcare sanity, we are looking into a learning pod. Although it's expensive, it's less than what we were paying for daycare or a nanny when he was in preschool so I am trying to think of it as an unexpected year of daycare expenses. It's not my intention to give my child a leg up, widen the inequities in education, or take away support from the public schools, and that weighs on my mind. I am just looking for a place for my son to be while my husband and I are at work and this feels like a stopgap solution to help us survive the year.
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We're working on putting together a learning pod for my daughter with some other kids from the neighborhood. What we're discussing is a pod that rotates houses and each parent takes a day leading the pod. They are still enrolled in public school, so it's more helping them connect to the online sessions and helping complete the practice (they're all in kindergarten) than actual instruction. For those of us working full-time, it will require some creative scheduling (like doing 4 10-hr days a week), but it still seems better than trying to take on my daughter's facilitation by myself while still working full-time.
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@Jess1483: We were deciding between staying with our private K-2 class or moving to our county e-learning option (that has been in place for >5yrs). Going with our county program would keep funds local and employ our county teachers vs. opting into our established state virtual program.
In the end our school decided to split kinder and 1/2nd grade. Kinder will be in the school room with one teacher, while 1/2 graders start virtual with the other. Previously the three grades were mixed with two teachers, about 15 students total.
Now, we are talking with some of the other 1/2 grade parents (who we already would see socially if not for the pandemic) to do a pod 1-2x a week. Kids would be at one families house who has a large screened porch and parents would rotate to watch and guide them through the lessons. Hopefully it provides some safer socializing and parent relief here and there. But our state is bananas (FL) so it will really all depend... -
@lindseykaye: I'm hoping my kids end up in assigned classes with families I know and trust so that I can also do some sort of informal "pod" arrangement 1-2x per week like you're mentioning. In my mind, the kids (probably just 2-4 kids) will meet for a portion of their learning day. Perhaps they can watch a lesson and do the associated work, particularly if it's something that would work well in a group, like a science or social studies project, at one house for an hour/ninety minutes. In an ideal world, both of my kids would end up in class with their friends who are siblings so we could just swap houses (ie 1st graders at one that day, 3rd graders at the other), but that's pretty unlikely.
My main issue with a lot of the more formal "pod" set ups I'm seeing is that there is still a huge element of trust involved when you're podded with people you don't know well - it may not be significantly better than school itself! I think we are pretty conservative with our social distancing rules for our kids, and worry about the things some of my friends allow that I think are kind of crazy...but I'm conscious enough to realize at the same time that there are others who probably think I'm insane to let my six year old dance (in a way I feel is safe), or my eight year old occasionally accompany me on a quick masked Target run...so everything is relative. In the end I will probably only feel comfortable doing a pod with people I already know relatively well, who I feel will be honest about sharing what their families are up to and potential exposures. I feel that with these paid pods, people are using them as childcare, and will feel justified sending kids so long as they aren't actively coughing up a lung/vomiting/running a 103 degree temperature, just as some people do with "real school", and that worries me.
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San Diego County just made home pods/day camps illegal if they are operating during the school year. No press release yet, it just happened this week. I got the information from our preschool because they were thinking about doing a day camp for students that had parents that worked outside the house as essential workers.
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@Tionn3: Illegal? Why? Sounds like they won't come with a solution, but they won't let you do it either...
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@Mama Bird: I don't know why. The summer camps across the county have been going extremely well. There have been no outbreaks at summer camps.
ETA our preschool is attached to a private k-12. That is why they were investigating day camps under their camp license.
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@Tionn3: Cue frantic Google search since I'm in CA as well. Where are the kids of essential workers supposed to go??
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@Corduroy: This is only San Diego County. Day care and preschools are still allowed to be open because child care licenses are separate from summer camp/ day camp licenses.
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@Tionn3: I saw that but my neighboring school districts have closed their on campus care so I'm concerned that the trend will continue.
I found this article published in SD yesterday that mentioned "The state health and safety code says that camps operating as unlicensed child care can only operate during the summer months or outside school hours." I'll hope it's related to that.
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@Corduroy: This must be why.
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@PinkElephant: this is what I was wondering too. I’m seeing so many requests on social media for any families of the same grade wanting to join together in the pod. But these are strangers in lots of cases! Who the heck knows what they’ve been doing all this time or think is ok. Plus several are mentioning they have younger kids so would also be bringing them or looking for others with small kids to act as ‘playmates’ while the older ones do their schooling. The logistics sound like an absolute nightmare...and then what if this continues on for 2 or more years?! My son has about 3 closer friends that we just started to get to know the parents through birthday parties and pick ups, but there’s no way I would trust any of them to form a pod.
. It seems a lot of families here are choosing to do some version of online learning (we have multiple options here and not all take away funding from schools). But my perception of it was that it was going to be a group of kids moving from house to house, with a parent facilitating, which doesn't sound like a good option for us. Reply
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