Connecticut parents, teachers, seek alternatives to in-school learning
With only a few weeks to go until school starts in Connecticut, many parents remain conflicted about whether it’s safe to send their children back and are exploring hiring an educator to teach distance learning curriculum in small “learning pods” or one on one.
As a result, the burgeoning demand — a national trend — has created a new niche for teachers who don’t feel safe returning to the classroom.
This has led to parents forming learning pods — also known as “pandemic pods: — where they take turns teaching the school curriculum to avoid the cost of a teacher or tutor.
Tough decision
Denise D’Onofrio of Orange, who loved her job teaching English in a Bridgeport high school, has decided not to return, in part to protect her students and to accommodate her two school-aged children at home whose school schedule could shift at any moment because of the fluidity of the pandemic/school situation.
But she still loves teaching and so, after making the decision to leave, has decided to go private, offering her services to parents interested in pod-style learning or individual instruction, based on the given district’s distance learning curriculum.
The demand is high and so is the parent response in these parts, she said. She offers flexibility with hours and settings, her house or theirs, and said she can teach her own children at night and on weekends.
“I’m not concerned about my own health — I’m more concerned about my kids (at home) and hundreds of students,” D’Onofrio said. “I don’t teach from the front of the classroom. I’m constantly moving, blending in,” and that style doesn’t fit with social distancing protocols.
“I wouldn’t be putting my best self out there. I don’t want what I do to go to waste,” said D’Onofrio, who is passionate about teaching in the inner city and in the teen age group. She’s been teaching K-12 in Bridgeport for 15 years.
She worries about all those students counting on her, expecting her to return in fall — many of whom text her for that extra connection — and worries they will feel she abandoned them.
“It’s not just teaching for me. I’m disappointed,” D’Onofrio said. “It’s not a good position for teachers.”
She also recognizes the situation for teachers is different in an urban setting, where they sometimes have to break up fights — ignoring social distancing — and where mask mandates might be difficult to maintain.
The teacher-for-hire model isn’t cheap at $75 to $100 per hour for individual gigs, with a reduction for pods.
The learning pod trend “is a stark sign of how the pandemic will continue to drive inequity in the nation’s education system,” the Washington Post reported.
D’Onofrio, however, said she’s flexible for families with lower incomes.
Like most shifting into the ever-growing pod/individual learning industry, D’Onofrio will use the distance learning plans put out by the school system and she would students them master each skill, then send any undone work as homework.
“It’s a waste of time to hire me to watch them do work,” she said.
COVID-19 perceptions
University of New Haven assistant professor of public health and chairman of the university’s Department of Health Administration and Policy Karl Minges said the infection rate for the virus is low in Connecticut — less than one percent for weeks now — but the perception by parents with concerns about returning to school might be influenced by two factors: watching national news coverage showing some states in the double digits for infections and the high mortality rate in the Northeast during the beginning of the pandemic.
“Their reaction might not be based in Connecticut data,” said Minges, who will send his child to kindergarten this year, but said pods are a good alternative.
He said parents from Connecticut, New York, New Jersey and Massachusetts also may have a strong memory of the pandemic’s impact when the Northeast was experiencing the highest rates of positive tests, hospitalizations and fatalities per capita.
“So, I think parents are going to be more cautious in this region,” Minges said.
For those who are concerned and can afford it, the pod idea “makes sense,” Minges said, because it will reduce the number of contacts a child has with peers and teachers, and that’s effective if everyone is following protocols such as face masks, hand washing, social distancing and regularly cleaning surfaces.
He said the level of risk for young children is extremely low and they may get sicker with a cold or flu than with COVID-19. He said they also are less likely to be transmitters than older children and teens.
“I think the pods could be helpful with the younger age groups,” if it makes parents feel comfortable, he said.
Meet the demand
In response to the high demand for help with distance learning, the JCC of Greater New Haven will offer a new program in which those who opt for distance learning can do the curriculum at the center, with help, and add additional enrichment activities.
JCC Executive Director Scott Cohen said that under the program, students in kindergarten through seventh grade will attend from 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. and will get help with distance learning curriculum provided by schools. In addition, they will have other activities, such as exercise, arts and crafts and STEM projects, all done with safety protocols such as social distancing and, in many cases, outdoors.
They will staff the program with as many educators as possible, as well camp counselors, he said.
The cost will be $900 per month for five days — or $45 per day — and will be prorated for those attending fewer days if they were to choose a hybrid learning model.
“Parents need to work,” Cohen said. “People are concerned about the virus spread. They’re concerned there’s going to be a resurgence.”
Cohen said although there is a low infection rate in Connecticut, parents “feel better with them outside in small groups.”
Parents weigh options
Around the country and the state, the debate over schools reopening continues. Parents and teachers remain concerned that the virus will see a resurgence because school essentially is a large gathering — the No. 1 enemy in preventing spread of the virus.
Most area schools have completed reopening plans that include wearing of masks by students and staff, social distancing, eating lunch in the classroom and sticking with a cohort — or homeroom classroom — throughout the day.
Many parents who had no choice but to oversee distance learning when schools were closed suddenly this year in March have expressed pain and failure in overseeing the work, especially those parents also working from home.
Some parents have expressed grave concerns about the practicality and feasibility of young children wearing masks all day and, for some, it’s the make or break issue.
Other parents say they can’t get their kids back to a normal school routine fast enough for both learning and social development — but they are thinking about contingency plans in case the virus sees a resurgence.
Some have said they fear that school attendance will lead to kids contracting the virus and bringing it home to vulnerable family members.
The outcry extends to teachers who, in July, were joined by education advocates from around the state in a trip to Hartford to request that legislators and officials slam the brakes on an in-person return to school amid the ongoing pandemic.
Sarah Gallipoli of Orange has two schoolaged children, ages 7 and 9, and said the pod system is a “great alternative” for parents, but for now she is sending her children back to school.
“I don’t have a choice,” said Gallipoli, who along with her husband is an essential worker who can’t work from home. “If they went to remote learning I’d put them in a pod. A pod, or what I call my plan B, appeals to me.”
Erin Roesler, who is a human resources director in North Haven and lives in Cromwell, said her district offers a hybrid model in which students would attend school two days a week or a remote program with teacher support that essentially is a beefed-up distance learning plan.
She and her husband chose the latter for their first- and fifth-graders, figuring that would provide “consistency and continuity” if the school model were to change.
Roesler, who manages her company’s response to the coronavirus, said she has “no faith” that her first-grader or others in her class will be able to follow the safety protocols consistently and she worries that could lead to staff, teachers, grandparents and others getting sick.
Roesler said she and her husband can work from home and so they can help the kids through remote instruction.
“It was frustrating and there was a learning curve, but both of my kids did pretty well with distance learning,” she said, noting they all got into a nice routine.
Woodbridge resident Sarah Beth Del Prete, a real estate agent, and her husband, Dan Del Prete, a New Haven firefighter, have seven children, and have decided the five school-aged children will take part in distance learning because there are so many unknowns about the virus and school. Her mother is a retired teacher who lives with them and will pitch in with the distance learning curriculum.
Sarah Beth Del Prete said her family is like a pod in itself, and it might be crazy running the five around to different pods, although she’s interested in exploring that model if there are any other big families in a similar situation.
She said her children got closer during the recent distance learning, kidding by calling it “distracted learning,” and said the family is worried about the virus because they have a 5-month-old and her mother is in a high-risk age, although healthy. Since they’ve already taken so many precautions, including Dan sleeping for three months in a dormitory, they have chosen to continue their quarantine, she said. Although the distance learning curriculum became hard to follow precisely at times, the family had a lot of supplemental learning activities such as electing a kid president at home, including campaigning and the kids are less stressed without the after-school crunch of homework and extracurricular activities. She said they are all getting along better, too.
“To do all the precautions and send them back didn’t make sense to us,” Sarah Beth Del Prete said, noting there are so many unknowns about the virus, including its longterm effects and the length of antibody protection, “A lot of it is fear-based. We don’t have to take that risk, so we continue to self-quarantine.”
Not home schooling
The pod system with distance learning curriculum is not home schooling and not an online school.
National education expert Lisa Collum said distance learning overseen by parents or teachers is not home schooling because parents are the facilitator, not the teacher. As a facilitator, parents are making sure assignments are turned in, uploaded, downloaded and more, she said.
Collum, an author, educator, school owner and mother of four, bills herself as a “motivational leader on a mission to make your quarantine schooling as effective as possible.”
When planning learning pods where an educator is in charge or parents take turns overseeing the group, Collum gives these tips: 1 Find families that are following the same safety precautions, such as wearing masks and not traveling.
1 Plan for as much outdoors as possible, switching with families and creating a schedule.
1 Keep groups small, three to five kids, so it is manageable and safe, but they get to socialize. 1 Create learning centers such as backyard for arts and crafts or the garage for reading, and establish safety practices such as hand washing and social distancing.
Finding teachers
As a result of the national demand for pod learning, agencies offering teachers are emerging.
At SchoolHouse At-Home Teaching, started in January before the pandemic, “teachers are in high demand right now from parents who are creating the pods throughout the country,” said spokeswoman Krystina Milteer.
The website, “Selected for families,” opens on the homepage with a happy woman and young child reading on the floor and the bold words: “Hire a professional teacher for your learning pod.”
The website promises: “Professional teachers support and manage your child’s education needs at home.” They claim on the website to have a database of 35,000 teachers who have been vetted, references checked.