What are ‘pandemic pods,’ and how will they help California parents teach their kids this fall?

When Sacramento-area schools were ordered to start the next school year online, Lauren Davis of Folsom knew she had to take action.

The experience for her 9-year-old daughter was not optimal when schools abruptly closed campuses in March amid a surge in coronavirus cases.

“I know I am not alone when I say that distance learning didn’t work for our family,” said Davis, a single mother. “It was such a challenge.”

Her solution: organize a “pandemic pod.”

Davis works from home as a business analyst. And while her company has been “incredibly generous” with its work-from-home policy, allowing parents to step away to help their children, Davis recognized she could not give all of her time to both her work and her daughter. She began looking to hire help – someone to work four days a week, three to four hours a day with her daughter and four other children.

Davis reached out to two other families, hoping to organize a structure that would provide a social setting for her daughter and relief for other parents trying to juggle jobs. The plan was to have the children seated at a dining room table, focused on school work while an adult supervised and helped with school subjects.

“I feel like now is the time to be creative, because school looks like it’s never looked before,” Davis said. “And work looks like it never looked like before.”

In just a matter of days, Davis received more than 50 requests from people interested in the de facto teaching job. Some applicants asked for $36 to $50 an hour, a price too steep for Davis and the other parents.

While the price is steep, many parents of the 250,000 school children in the Sacramento area have been forced to choose between the cost of providing a stable learning experience for their children and the ability to commit full days to their jobs. And with pandemic pods coming with a significant investment, the situation is highlighting the disparity in the resources available to parents.

For some – particularly single parents – the choice has come down to whether they quit their jobs or hire a part-time teacher.

‘Pandemic Pods’

In the days after Gov. Gavin Newsom announced school closures across the state, thousands of parents began taking to social media to find like-minded parents with similar aged children in their cities.

“Pandemic Pods,” where families pool resources to hire a teacher or another adult to monitor their children’s distance learning, were born. In them, groups of students, often between four to six children, learn in cohorts and are instructed or monitored by a credentialed teacher, tutor, parent or babysitter.

The idea went viral through Facebook posts, as parents began reacting to school closures. Many working mothers, who said they struggled with effectively monitoring distance learning in the spring, are now finding parents with similar age children to physically share space with.

Other parents said they didn’t feel like they were able to effectively teach their young children, even with a curriculum on hand. In the San Francisco Bay Area, more than 14,000 residents joined a Pandemic Pods Facebook group.

The situation has also led to an increase in parents considering a shift to homeschooling.

Ashley, a mother of three school-aged children and pregnant with her fourth, said she may quit her job and stay home with her children when they start school. She asked that her last name be withheld because she may leave her place of employment.

Ashley said she hasn’t been able to find affordable childcare if she returns to her job, and is afraid of sending her youngest children — ages 5 and 4 — to daycare and exposing them to more people during the pandemic. Ashley, who works at a preschool, is also afraid of contracting the virus and bringing it home to her children.

“I am strongly considering just staying home and home-schooling, because the stress of it all is just too much,” Ashley said.

Davis said she knew several mothers who were considering quitting their jobs or going on extended leave to help their children at home. But not all parents can stay home.

“This is my only source of income,” Davis said. “Quitting my job isn’t an option, just making it all the more stressful. I think that’s why I came up with this plan (to create a pod in her home). I don’t know how we are expected to do it all.”

Furthering the divide

But some community leaders are concerned that in-home private teaching groups will further exacerbate inequities between students.

Pandemic pods can replicate white flight, similar to what happened in the historical aftermath of Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka in 1954, when a Supreme Court decision desegregated schools.

“This is a tragic example of educational institutions’ failure to provide remote instructional support for all parents and students – no matter of race or class,” said Carl Pinkston of the Black Parallel School Board in Sacramento. “It’s clear that resource-rich parents will provide unlimited support for their child to mitigate learning loss.”

Pinkston said that following the Brown v. Board of Education decision, many white middle class parents rushed to set up home schooling with nannies and teachers for their children.

“Once again, the current challenge is limiting the quality of education for Black students,” he said. “This is reinforcing the racial, class, educational injustice system, and the pandemic is providing the opportunity to deepen the problem.”

Alison Collins, an educator and a board member of the San Francisco Unified Board of Education, said she is concerned that pandemic pods will isolate families and their children even further, particularly children of color, students with disabilities and English-language learners.

Forming pods at the start of the school year could set in place long-lasting social circles and friendships, all of which are important, especially during a pandemic.

“There is a need for connection,” Collins said. “But I see how this is a stress response. We can create things that can be harmful.”

Collins, who identifies as a Black and mixed-race mother and has rallied education leaders to connect with parents more intentionally and inclusively, said parents have already told her they feel left out.

“There are parents who are saying, ‘My kids are not going to be in a pod, and no one wants to be with my kid,’” she said.

With just a few more weeks left in summer, parents continue to search for ideas to help their children during the fall.

Sacramento resident Crystal Harris, a single mother of three children ages 10, 8, and 6, said she is unable to afford the help she will need when school begins. Harris is out of work while on medical leave, and will require surgery in just a few weeks while her children will be in distance learning.

Harris said she wishes she could hire a teacher or babysitter to keep her children focused, or join an already existing group of students who are learning together so her children don’t fall further behind.

Parents like Harris wish they could hire help, but are left with few options other than doing the work themselves.

“As a parent we have to do what’s best for our children,” she said. “While some can afford it, others can’t. I understand that things come at a price. I just find it frustrating because our children are the ones suffering.”

This story was originally published July 27, 2020 at 5:00 AM.