My friend in another state just joined an existing a pod for one of her 3 kids (youngest because older are in private -middle or can manage -HS)

Her pod works like this:
4-5 families (I can't remember)
each family hosts for one week
In her state, DL is only half day.
They hired a teacher to stay with the kids from 9-3 and each family pays $300 per week.
Good deal for teacher -- but another state -- VA would cost more for those hours I think
Teacher facilitates morning DL for all kids, they eat lunch together, teacher assists in afternoons with kids individual work, they must have some breaks built in but I don't know
She says they are happy they joined; another family found this teacher who is a gem she doesn't think she could have found or contracted the person so well

Risks: kids are unmasked and indoors 3-4 others. For them it's worth the risk because their youngest kid was suffering and so was family. If any family in the pod has a known COVID exposure the family in the pod stays out for the week-2 weeks.

We homeschool this year because my work is flexible and so is DH so we take turns and my kids get a lot of free time

Anonymous wrote:Did Duran change the plan again? I wondered if the new variant was going to come into play.

No. Don't you get his weekly emails? Just sent one last night.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It seems like pods are mostly designed to enable parents to work more, and the kids in the pod distract each other. At least for early elementary.

Would it be better if parents worked flexible hours so that one can supervise their child student during class times, and tried to do outdoor/masked playdates on weekends to keep some socialization?

That would work if you are satisfied with the DL experience.

Wait. Above the description of the pod says "We hired a full time tutor to facilitate distance learning and do some extras."

So... the tutor just supervises the kids doing distance learning, right? Plus some extras before and after school, which is something parents can do too, right?

I'm not being snarky, I'm truly trying to figure out the value-add of the pod versus parents supervising the kids' DL.

Not PP, but value added for us is my DH and I have conference calls during the day and my job is not flexible. I'm doing Behavioral Health appointments via telehealth video back to back, and it was hell in the spring with my then preschooler. So we send our child to a pod daily and have a afterschool sitter or we couldn't work. Pod ensures socialization, school work completion, our jobs getting done that our employers pay us to do, and sanity for all in our household. I use to make one day a week stay home day, but not anymore, because benefit wasn't outweighing the cost,which was me cramming all my patients in the late afternoon and being super stressed all day keeping my easily distracted 5 year old focused his DL Kindergarten class.

Did Duran change the plan again? I wondered if the new variant was going to come into play.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I can tell some of the other kids in my child's class are in pods. I can tell because they clearly have other kids in the room with them. I do not see these kids having any advantage whatsoever over the non-pod kids. To the contrary, the pod kids often have more technical issues because of feedback and headphones, and they sometimes distract each other.

I think a tutor outside of the classroom sounds great, and so does socialization outside the classroom. But I'm not convinced that being in a pod benefits the kids during DL. I think the pods are ultimately all about the parents' careers.

We are both working full-time and have given up trying to keep our younger elementary student on schedule with DL. She's "in class" for 20 mins, then break for 30 mins, then in a special for 20 mins then asynchronous activity for 30 mins..repeat. This is a typical daily schedule with an hour for lunch and recess. We don't have the bandwidth to manage this. And Duran clearly is not putting students first so we've decided to choke up the extra cost for a pod/tutor since all private schools have a waitlist.

What is the cost per family per month?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It seems like pods are mostly designed to enable parents to work more, and the kids in the pod distract each other. At least for early elementary.

Would it be better if parents worked flexible hours so that one can supervise their child student during class times, and tried to do outdoor/masked playdates on weekends to keep some socialization?

That would work if you are satisfied with the DL experience.

Wait. Above the description of the pod says "We hired a full time tutor to facilitate distance learning and do some extras."

So... the tutor just supervises the kids doing distance learning, right? Plus some extras before and after school, which is something parents can do too, right?

I'm not being snarky, I'm truly trying to figure out the value-add of the pod versus parents supervising the kids' DL.

I’m the OP of the first grader pod. The value add is when both parents have jobs that require full time attention during working hours (which is our situation — dual big law family). Other parents in the pod also have similar situations or are required to work out of the home.

I’m genuinely surprised how many people are still living in 1955 and think most families in our area have a SAHM to fill in all the cracks where society, in this case the school system, is failing us. New flash: most families in our area have two working parents and closing schools has pushed us to the brink.

Quite the contrary. It’s 2021 and some of us work for global enterprises that accommodate employees across time zones, thereby providing the opportunity to work flexible hours. This gives some parents the ability to split supervision of DL during the day. The question is whether this is better than a pod. But only if you can swing it. I feel for the people who can’t.

Anonymous wrote:I can tell some of the other kids in my child's class are in pods. I can tell because they clearly have other kids in the room with them. I do not see these kids having any advantage whatsoever over the non-pod kids. To the contrary, the pod kids often have more technical issues because of feedback and headphones, and they sometimes distract each other.

I think a tutor outside of the classroom sounds great, and so does socialization outside the classroom. But I'm not convinced that being in a pod benefits the kids during DL. I think the pods are ultimately all about the parents' careers.

We are both working full-time and have given up trying to keep our younger elementary student on schedule with DL. She's "in class" for 20 mins, then break for 30 mins, then in a special for 20 mins then asynchronous activity for 30 mins..repeat. This is a typical daily schedule with an hour for lunch and recess. We don't have the bandwidth to manage this. And Duran clearly is not putting students first so we've decided to choke up the extra cost for a pod/tutor since all private schools have a waitlist.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It seems like pods are mostly designed to enable parents to work more, and the kids in the pod distract each other. At least for early elementary.

Would it be better if parents worked flexible hours so that one can supervise their child student during class times, and tried to do outdoor/masked playdates on weekends to keep some socialization?

That would work if you are satisfied with the DL experience.

Wait. Above the description of the pod says "We hired a full time tutor to facilitate distance learning and do some extras."

So... the tutor just supervises the kids doing distance learning, right? Plus some extras before and after school, which is something parents can do too, right?

I'm not being snarky, I'm truly trying to figure out the value-add of the pod versus parents supervising the kids' DL.

I’m the OP of the first grader pod. The value add is when both parents have jobs that require full time attention during working hours (which is our situation — dual big law family). Other parents in the pod also have similar situations or are required to work out of the home.

I’m genuinely surprised how many people are still living in 1955 and think most families in our area have a SAHM to fill in all the cracks where society, in this case the school system, is failing us. New flash: most families in our area have two working parents and closing schools has pushed us to the brink.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It seems like pods are mostly designed to enable parents to work more, and the kids in the pod distract each other. At least for early elementary.

Would it be better if parents worked flexible hours so that one can supervise their child student during class times, and tried to do outdoor/masked playdates on weekends to keep some socialization?

That would work if you are satisfied with the DL experience.

Wait. Above the description of the pod says "We hired a full time tutor to facilitate distance learning and do some extras."

So... the tutor just supervises the kids doing distance learning, right? Plus some extras before and after school, which is something parents can do too, right?

I'm not being snarky, I'm truly trying to figure out the value-add of the pod versus parents supervising the kids' DL.

I’m the OP of the first grader pod. The value add is when both parents have jobs that require full time attention during working hours (which is our situation — dual big law family). Other parents in the pod also have similar situations or are required to work out of the home.

I think the pods are ultimately all about the parents' careers.