MICROSCHOOL / how we survived last Spring …

After a two+ decade career climbing my way through the ranks of Wall Street and Silicon Valley, the last thing I imagined I would be doing at age 45 is living in a small cabin in Tahoe, homeschooling a kindergartner, doing the same housework my WW2 grandmother soldiered through (oh yes, now I make jam) WHILE also helping build and lead a mid-stage software company. Mostly it’s been stressful with a sprinkle of pixie dust parenting moments not previously afforded by a fairly typical Bay Area dual-working family schedule.

And yet here I am, like every other parent in the country, looking ahead to possibly another 12 months of the same. There is no time for self-pity nor protesting the unfair nor recrimination of an administration that has mishandled the pandemic; there is only forward motion. Almost all of the parents I know are in a similar frame of mind — the buck stops with us, we are responsible for our child’s health, well-being and development and there is very little we can depend on, except maybe each other. So this post is about how parents can help each other move forward and a few points of consideration for school districts and software-makers.

The past week or so, news has trickled out that SF Schools would not return IRL in the fall. While we have all been watching the Covid-19 caseload build, anxiously anticipating this moment would come, here it is, in print. Not final, details still being worked out, but but an early warning to parents to get their back-up plans in place. A smattering of related articles also mentions the possibility of forming micro-schools or pods with other parents.

Out of pure survival instinct this past spring, my partner and I actually did this — we formed a micro-school pod with another family (also with two demanding careers) and it was a pretty good solution. Enough other moms — no shade intended here to my dad friends and colleagues but this has been 99% a mom topic — have asked me for details that I figured it might be worth a quick post.

• How did we find our tutor? UrbanSitter (although Care.com and even Craigslist would work). We wrote a detailed description of the families, the three kids (2 Pre-K, 1 1st grade), what we were looking for academically, proposed daily schedule etc. We got insanely lucky. Our tutor had an undergraduate degree in education from an east coast liberal arts college, had worked as an educator and a ski-school teacher, had a progressive mindset that jived with our philosophy, and was very dedicated to her work, putting together thoughtful lesson plans every week and refined each evening.
• Where did we host “school”? We alternated houses daily. In retrospect, one week on/off or a dedicated space may have been a better solution — we are looking at outdoor settings for the fall. Being in Tahoe permitted a healthy outdoor component (homemade luge run!) to each day. If we had stayed in SF, this would have been doable but a little less free-range.
• How did we get comfortable with Covid risk? Transparency and trust. My partner is a physician who works at a county hospital. While he is exceedingly careful, my family accepts a high exposure risk and are thankfully pretty healthy. We were very upfront with the other family, the tutor and her housemates that they would all be in our same risk envelope and everyone accepted this risk. (FWIW — two of my work teammates live with immuno-compromised family members and I was similarly upfront with them, basically precipitating the conclusion that we would need to work remotely for the foreseeable future, even if SIP ended.) Our tutor and her very conscientious housemates took their responsibilities to our micro-community very seriously. We all wear masks when in public or shopping, don’t dine out and recreate outdoors.
• What would we do differently?: Pod of four with personality balance and everyone at the same learning ability. Our biggest challenges were: “three girl drama” (need I say more?) and different academic cadences. I would optimize first for similar reading/writing/math levels and then second for diversity and personality balance. I almost said gender balance but this isn’t the right concept … my daughter has several close friends who are gender fluid and so the concept of gender balance doesn’t adequately account for non-binary. “Diversity with compatibility” is a better description.
• More Upfront Expectation-setting (this one comes from the educator). Allocating time early in the school year to really form a group dynamic, encourage student accountability and have a crew agreement on goals and how to resolve issues (Amazing! and the pod parents probably need similar team-building). Also, regular parent check-ins.

How can state / local / federal governments provide support?

• Look at tax policy to make this model affordable for ALL parents and viable for the educators. Parents should not have to pay for basic education service with post-tax income since in theory we already pay for this service in our income tax outlay.
• Guidance on tax-reporting and benefits. Is the tutor a consultant or employee? Who owns W2 or 1099 reporting? Should pods form LLCs? What is the least friction path to pod-families providing healthcare benefits for the educator?
• Further, consider income tax relief for educators so they can afford to live in higher-cost areas where the dual-working parent model is the norm.
• Look at daycare regulations such that parents are not worried about violating state / local laws around forming and running a daycare but do provide bright-line guidance on safety requirements. In most jurisdictions, my suspicion is we need provisional guidance for “micro-school pods formed due to Covid-related school closures” that is less cumbersome than current daycare / school formation but adequate to ensure child safety.

How can software-makers support?

• Khan Academy, Osmo and Google Classroom have all been amazing resources. There is tons of great online content but as any working parent with an under-8 year old who has lived through the last 4 months can attest, OHL (online home learning) isn’t a thing. Helping educators with lesson planning is the super high-value capability.
• Coaching support for the educators. In a few hours, I am speaking with our tutor about returning this fall and we are text-laughing together because I am all hand-waving about a pod and she is thinking through the detailed realities of what it looks and feels like. In addition to being a gifted educator, this woman brings energy-worker intuition to the table and she deeply holds the feel and shape of the days and group dynamic. Being 1x1 with 3–4 K/1st kiddos all-day every-day for weeks on end is NOT EASY. My greatest hope is that we can find a network of like-minded educators to lean on. I could see schools stepping in with support or newer resources like Schoolhouse, MyVillage, Selected for Families offering something here.
• We are seeing the early edges of an Uber-like model that connects educators and families that holds so much promise. Being software-based versus parent-tribal based should promote pod diversity but this is an area that would need careful attention and intention: some critical thinking on this topic in yesterday’s NYT. I am thinking hard about economic diversity for the fall, in particular because one of our logical pod-families cannot afford a private tutor.
• When I dream the dream, I can see a model evolving where pods form for 8–10 week intensives — some academic, some more experiential, followed by 10-day break that could run year round, and frankly be much better suited to dual-working parent schedules than current “camp scramble” (scream if you hear me). This would also allow for pods to adjust on compatibility and for educators to develop a following / reputation score.
• If I were to be honest — I might like this dream better than the old reality. As someone who wanted to be a mom and have a solid career from a pretty early age, I feel like I have spent 30 years bumping along on a wagon with square wheels, trying to imagine what a circle might look like. Maybe this crazy pandemic and all its attendant tragedy, stress and chaos is forcing us to see this newer, better, rounder shape.