Have you sorted out the logistics of your pod yet?

[Anonymous]

I have a child who has 3 friends that we said we would pod with. We don’t have class assignments or school schedules. I am a SAHM and the other 3 families have work from home parents. All four families have 3 kids each and kids are different ages.

We have no specific details, no tutor, no discussion of meeting times. I’m wondering if this will end up just being play dates.

I joined a few Facebook groups about pods and it has a bunch of parents looking to join or create pods for various ages and schools.

What is your pod arrangement?

Is it childcare sharing? Are you hiring someone to lead the pod or will the parents take turns?

[Anonymous]

Sounds laughably typical, OP.
Lots of parents are talking a big game but not doing a thing, because 99.99% of them are not equipped to actually manage a group homeschooling situation.

In your particular situation, they're all expecting you to step up because you're the stay-at-home parent. Unless you want to be the unpaid, exposed teacher, I would rethink this pod.

- ex-homeschooler and looked after DS's friends. Done with that!

[Anonymous]

12 kids seems like a lot.

[Anonymous]

We aren’t doing this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:12 kids seems like a lot.

Op here. Pretty sure this pod is for our 9yo kids only.

The other 3 families have middle schoolers. I’m the only one with a preschool child and I would not expect her to participate in the pod. She would prevent me from being able to give the pod my full attention. All the other parents work full time so it isn’t like they would be able to oversee this pod either.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:12 kids seems like a lot.

Op here. Pretty sure this pod is for our 9yo kids only.

The other 3 families have middle schoolers. I’m the only one with a preschool child and I would not expect her to participate in the pod. She would prevent me from being able to give the pod my full attention. All the other parents work full time so it isn’t like they would be able to oversee this pod either.

You really think the parents working full-time are NOT going to expect
"light supervision" of their other kids? Ha ha!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:12 kids seems like a lot.

Op here. Pretty sure this pod is for our 9yo kids only.

The other 3 families have middle schoolers. I’m the only one with a preschool child and I would not expect her to participate in the pod. She would prevent me from being able to give the pod my full attention. All the other parents work full time so it isn’t like they would be able to oversee this pod either.

You really think the parents working full-time are NOT going to expect
"light supervision" of their other kids? Ha ha!

I also just learned that the school day will be almost 7 hours per day. That is going to be a lot of logging on and off the entire day. Ugh.

I originally thought school would be half day and we could enrich the kids in the afternoons and also socialize them. This just seems like it is going to be a pain in the ass.

[Anonymous]

I dint understand how you’ve agreed to do something without having discussed at all what it is. Why don’t you talk to the other parents?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I dint understand how you’ve agreed to do something without having discussed at all what it is. Why don’t you talk to the other parents?

We are trying to figure it out. That is why I asked how other pods are handling the logistics.

I don’t think the other families are necessarily looking for childcare. We just don’t want our kids to fail at distance learning. We want to enrich our kids.

[Anonymous]

Time to back out, OP. The others didn't prepare anything because they were expecting you to do all the work...

[Anonymous]

3 friends/classmates of my 5th grade dd + dd. We will rotate houses, Tu-F. When it’s your day you figure out how to oversee the kids. A couple of dual working parents who will either take turns with the spouse (so each spouse gets one day every 2 weeks) or have a sitter/nanny available that day. A couple of SAH parents. As far as I know some families will have different pods for their other kids. In any case they won’t be included in this one.

We’ve known the families and kids for years and don’t anticipate any problems with the possible exception of needing to shuffle days around, which everyone is prepared for. The hours will be per the school bell schedule.

I would not agree to anything more complicated than this arrangement, including different age groups or kids we don’t know well.

[Anonymous]

So I'm middle class. Everyone is talking about it. Most cant commit until tje school year starts and we see how it plays out. Will most likely end up as some sort of underpaid childcare arrangement just because no one can afford to take off 2 weeks randomly.

[Anonymous]

Op, you are a sahm. This pod idea doesn’t benefit you or your kids. You’d be better off staying out of a pod and focusing on your own kids. No exposure risk and you can focus on their education and your other kids. Drop out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:3 friends/classmates of my 5th grade dd + dd. We will rotate houses, Tu-F. When it’s your day you figure out how to oversee the kids. A couple of dual working parents who will either take turns with the spouse (so each spouse gets one day every 2 weeks) or have a sitter/nanny available that day. A couple of SAH parents. As far as I know some families will have different pods for their other kids. In any case they won’t be included in this one.

We’ve known the families and kids for years and don’t anticipate any problems with the possible exception of needing to shuffle days around, which everyone is prepared for. The hours will be per the school bell schedule.

I would not agree to anything more complicated than this arrangement, including different age groups or kids we don’t know well.

THIS MAXIMIZES YOUR EXPOSURE AND IS WHY PODS ARE A BAD IDEA.

Apologies for shouting, but this is the example of what not to do: rotating locations rapidly, rotating caregivers rapidly, AND overlapping pods. It's the worst possible pod situation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:3 friends/classmates of my 5th grade dd + dd. We will rotate houses, Tu-F. When it’s your day you figure out how to oversee the kids. A couple of dual working parents who will either take turns with the spouse (so each spouse gets one day every 2 weeks) or have a sitter/nanny available that day. A couple of SAH parents. As far as I know some families will have different pods for their other kids. In any case they won’t be included in this one.

We’ve known the families and kids for years and don’t anticipate any problems with the possible exception of needing to shuffle days around, which everyone is prepared for. The hours will be per the school bell schedule.

I would not agree to anything more complicated than this arrangement, including different age groups or kids we don’t know well.

THIS MAXIMIZES YOUR EXPOSURE AND IS WHY PODS ARE A BAD IDEA.

Apologies for shouting, but this is the example of what not to do: rotating locations rapidly, rotating caregivers rapidly, AND overlapping pods. It's the worst possible pod situation.

Someone who is in this type of pod situation likely would’ve wanted in-person school and doesn’t mind.