8/30/2020 By CARTER EVANS Nearly 12 million grade-schoolers will be learning remotely this fall, and that number is expected to keep growing. It's a major source of stress for America's working parents. Some who can afford it are turning to an option called learning pods. From the classroom to the family room, 80% of the country's largest school districts are moving to remote learning. Marina Jurica and Todd Preston have demanding jobs at NASA, and while helping with third-grade math is hardly rocket science, they're desperate for help. They spoke with CBS News about their struggles. "You have come to the conclusion, like so many others, that you can't do your job and teach your child?" CBS News asked. "No way I can," Jurica said. "At best, I'm 60% productive." Suddenly, Jurica is interrupted by her children. "Is this what your zoom meetings are like?" CBS News asked, as one of Jurica's children hands her a toy. "Thank you. This is a beautiful triceratops," Jurica said. So, they launched a trial run for a learning pod with other families. Together, they're hiring a tutor for 20 hours a week at a cost of $2,500 a month. Join us on Telegram: https://t.me/cinfoshare "We are very blessed, we are lucky to have the options," said Preston. But the only option for high school senior Nathan Castillo is to log in to class while frantically working to keep his family's restaurant in business. "When it gets busy with customers, I won't be able to pay attention to class," Castillo explained. And paying for a tutor is out of the question. "It's really causing a disparity in the haves and the have nots," said Jan Glusac, who has been teaching in public school for more than 30 years. Now, she's matching qualified teachers with pods. The cost to parents: $40 per hour, per child. But she's looking for sponsors to pay for kids who can't afford it. "It's probably the best situation that we can make out of what we have," she said. "And there shouldn't be a divide between the haves and the have nots, or between whatever skin color or religion. We're kinda doing that, aren't we?" "It's just kind of a really horrible side effect that this is having," said Glusac. With a hard lesson in home economics for everyone.  Offering serious and challenging mathematics to intellectually gifted students  APLUS教学中心 | 一对一辅导服务中心 | 申请咨询顾问中心 8/14/2020 If you had any doubt that hard-left ideologues run government school systems in many (most?) places, take a look at Fairfax County, Virginia's most populous county, with over a million residents, one of the richest counties in the United States with an average household income well over one hundred thousand dollars. The educrats who run the Fairfax public schools have advised parents there not to hire tutors or organize informal homeschool "pods" to replace the shuttered schools because some parents cannot afford to do so, and that would be "unfair."  Fairfax County (map credit: Home By School). I am not making this up. Here is a link to a memo sent to parents on August 7, with some key excerpts below: Across the country, many parents are joining together to engage private tutors (who are often school teachers) to provide tutoring or home instruction for small groups of children. While there is no systematic way to track these private efforts, it's clear that a number of "pandemic pods" or tutoring pods are being established in Fairfax County. We are aware of these tutoring pods, as well as some accompanying community concerns. To be clear, these instructional efforts are not supported by or in any way controlled by FCPS…. (snip) While FCPS doesn't and can't control these private tutoring groups, we do have concerns that they may widen the gap in educational access and equity for all students. Many parents cannot afford private instruction. Many working families can't provide transportation to and from a tutoring pod, even if they could afford to pay for the service. We have received some requests from parents who would like to cluster groups or pods of students together with a specific teacher. From both a logistical perspective, and in the interest of educational equity, FCPS cannot accommodate such requests. [emphases added] In other words, parents who strive to educate their children are being unfair to parents who don't because their children will have an advantage. This is insanity. By the same logic, parents who remain married and raise their children in intact families are being unfair to children whose parents cannot maintain their marriage, because many studies show that children with a mother and father at home do better. Taking the logic even farther, parents who don't become drug addicts are being unfair to children whose parents enslave themselves to heroin, crack, methamphetamine, or even alcohol. Everyone must descend to the lowest common denominator in the interest of "equity." After all, responsible behavior leads to "gaps" with the children of the worst parents.  Mathematics Enrichment for Intellectually Curious Learners I wonder of the parents of Fairfax County, who tend to be more highly educated as well as richer than the national average, understand the insanity of the bureaucrats who run their taxpayer-funded schools. According to the 2010 Census, there are almost twice as many Asian-heritage residents as blacks (17.53% versus 9.17%). Do the Asian-heritage families — group that generally highly values education — support this notion of dumbing down their kids so they won't outperform other ethnicities? Hat tip: LaCorte News. By Communications and Community Relations AUGUST 07, 2020 Across the country, many parents are joining together to engage private tutors (who are often school teachers) to provide tutoring or home instruction for small groups of children. While there is no systematic way to track these private efforts, it’s clear that a number of “pandemic pods” or tutoring pods are being established in Fairfax County. We are aware of these tutoring pods, as well as some accompanying community concerns. To be clear, these instructional efforts are not supported by or in any way controlled by FCPS—for several reasons: President, Principal Loan Consultant, Leader Funding, Inc.  • These are purely private initiatives on the part of parents and families. Families have an absolute right to work together and pool resources to provide instruction or tutoring—just as they do to pool resources and provide private daycare, music lessons, or recreational activities for their children—but tutoring pods are not part of the public school system. • Under the terms of their contracts, FCPS teachers are allowed to provide tutoring services for reimbursement, but only as long as they meet these conditions:
While FCPS doesn’t and can’t control these private tutoring groups, we do have concerns that they may widen the gap in educational access and equity for all students. Many parents cannot afford private instruction. Many working families can’t provide transportation to and from a tutoring pod, even if they could afford to pay for the service. We have received some requests from parents who would like to cluster groups or pods of students together with a specific teacher. From both a logistical perspective, and in the interest of educational equity, FCPS cannot accommodate such requests.  It is complicated and time-consuming to develop class schedules. Schools go to great pains to develop schedules that consider teacher and parent input and balance classes for gender, race, home language, academic strengths, learning goals, and special learning needs like special education, English language development, and enrichment. In the face of the many challenges arising from the Covid-19 pandemic, our schools do not have the capacity to accommodate specific class/teacher requests from families for the purpose of creating instructional pods. Our energy and focus must remain on providing the best educational experience and impact possible for all our students. |  ALL-IN-ONE ONLINE REGISTRATION SOFTWARE        Principal,  Tel: (301)906-6889; (240)912-6290 Licensed in MD, VA, DC, WV, PA, DE, NC, SC, FL WeChat ID: sunnychenyuqing NMLS # 1220187 President, Principal Loan Consultant, Leader Funding, Inc.  电话: (240) 784-6645 Rockville, MD Phone: 301-366-3497  |
