Why some Nashville parents are considering learning pods, tutors amid concerns over reopening plans

Each day this summer, Jennifer Hagan-Dier has sent her 8-year-old son, a rising third grader at Explore Community School, to join three other children for their own "private summer camp" experience.

The kids gather at Treux Noe's house, where Noe is their hired "learning facilitator." Laid off from a service industry job when businesses shut down this spring, Noe now spends their days keeping four energetic children busy. 

The children spend a lot of time playing outside. They do arts and crafts, play musical instruments — Noe is a drummer in a local band — and learn Spanish. They even cook together. 

And this fall, Noe will work with the children each day, managing their learning and helping the children with schoolwork in a classroom set up at Hagan-Dier's house. Noe would have stayed home teaching their own child anyways, so it's a natural fit.

As parents face the reality that school will likely start remotely for many students this fall, some are banding together to create mini in-person schools, hire private tutors and explore other alternatives over concerns remote instruction will be inadequate or isolating.

Creating these "learning pods" is a trend playing out across the state and nation but one that raises questions about equity and what happens to students whose families can't afford the private help.

'To keep us from going completely insane'

The children whom Noe takes care of each day attend three East Nashville schools. Their families "podded up" in May after Hagan-Dier realized she and her children were mentally and emotionally drained after spending months together at home while Metro Schools were closed. 

"My children and I had been together for a very long time," Hagan-Dier said. 

Though she is able to work from home, Hagan-Dier is her family's breadwinner and, like many parents, has found it challenging or near impossible to keep two children engaged while working full time.

For some parents who have to physically go to work, staying home isn't even an option. 

Even before grappling with returning to school this fall, Hagan-Dier knew her son and 4-year-old daughter were missing out on socializing with their peers. Originally, the "private summer camp" pod, as they jokingly called it, was not for learning, she said. "This is literally to keep us from going completely insane."

But as Metro Schools announced students would begin the year virtually, the parents also decided they would continue the arrangement into the fall — out of a need for child care, social interaction and because of how well it has worked this summer. 

"All of this comes to a place of privilege. I don't have it in my budget right now to pay a weekly fee, but I have to," Hagan-Dier said.

What is a learning pod?

Last week, Metro Schools released sample schedules for online learning this fall, and more teachers are expected to release their own classroom schedules for virtual learning this week ahead of the Aug. 4 start of school.

Nashville's 86,000 students are slated to go back to school virtually until at least Labor Day, and though surrounding districts are choosing a variety of reopening strategies, most Williamson County students will also start the year learning remotely and at least 3,800 students in Wilson County will be doing the same.

Across the country, many parents will likely decide it is safer to keep their children at home even if schools do reopen — but many of those same parents have to work, and they want their children to grow and learn as best they can.

So parents are launching these "learning pods" by finding a small group of families either nearby in their neighborhood or with similar-aged children and agree to do remote learning together. Some families are hiring a teacher or tutor to lead instruction; some are opting out of district curriculum altogether and opting for home schooling instead.

Some will rely on these instructors for child care as well, and still others are planning for the group to rotate between homes.

Parents in some cases are even doling out hundreds of dollars to send their children to "virtual learning" camps, like one being offered at the Nashville Gymnastics Training Center, where parents can pay $850 a month per child for their student to spend the day practicing gymnastics at the center and having access to a certified teacher while they work on their remote learning assignments.

Giving parents options

But some school communities are also helping parents pair up together for additional support.

Christine Hatchett Pulle is the president-elect of the parent teacher organization at Nashville's Dan Mills Elementary School. 

The Dan Mills PTO decided to survey its own parents to see if they were interested in creating pods. 

The survey asked how many children the families have, what grade they are in, if any of the adults in the home are essential workers or are more likely to be exposed to the virus.

It also asked what level of risk families are willing to face when sending their children to other people’s homes and if they plan to send their children back to school if and when campuses do reopen.

The PTO isn't creating or facilitating any pods, though, and worked with Dan Mills Elementary Principal Robby Yates to ensure the school was OK with the effort.

"All we could really do is help parents connect with each other," Pulle said. "We are just giving people an opportunity to connect with people who have similar needs, and from that, we are letting parents take it from there."

At least 103 families responded to the survey, and Pulle said it seems many are keeping the option "in their back pocket," depending on what virtual learning schedules might look like.

Metro Schools Director Adrienne Battle has said students can expect about 6½ hours of learning time a day, though that can vary depending on the student's age and grade level. The instruction, which is based on Florida Virtual School curriculum, will also include a mix of synchronous, or live instruction with a teacher, and asynchronous learning opportunities, such as independent assignments for students to complete on their own.  

Pulle said she isn't excited about her children, who range from middle school to preschool, spending a lot of time in front of a screen, but she also doesn't think it's practical for schools to reopen. She hasn't decided if she'll let her children "pod up."

"I've never done any kind of virtual schooling. I do not think that looking at a screen is even remotely the same as (learning) in a classroom," she said. "I don't see how schools are even going to open in the fall ... or if they do, I think it is going to be a situation that is fraught. I feel like every decision we could make is just the best of worst."

Is the risk worth it?

Keri Adams, who has three daughters in grades three, four and seven, knows already her children don't have the option to join a pod. 

Adams and her family help care for her parents — her father has Parkinson's disease, and her mother is scheduled to undergo brain surgery this fall. Both are already at a higher risk of severe complications if they contract COVID-19.

That risk, even for her daughters' sake, is too high, Adams said.

"If we were to pod up, we would be exposed to other children and the other choices that those families are making, which I don't judge, but we likely have a different definition of low risk than most families," she said. 

Adams said her family isn't typically a one-income family, but they will do their best to "make it work" to keep her children home this fall.

"I do lament the lack of socialization and even just the physical activity that increases when the kids are at school," she said. "I'll not be able to replicate that, but we will muddle through."

Adams also said she worries for other families she knows that aren't able to make it work.

"To me it just amplifies the inequities that we have in this country surrounding work and working women, schools, social supports," Adams said. "The fact that we would have to open up schools when it is unsafe because we don't have safety nets in place, it's shameful."

Some families still 'get left out'

Sonya Thomas, a Metro Schools parent and executive director of Nashville PROPEL — a parent advocacy group — also worries about the equity issues learning pods might exacerbate between "the haves and have-nots."

"I’m hearing more of the upper-middle-class families who are creating these pods. And I think it’s a good thing, I cannot blame them for wanting to do something for their kids," Thomas said. "Why do you think they need a tutor? They think they won't get enough from the virtual learning. These are parents who have always gotten quality. ... It's not about needing someone to watch your child; you're getting a tutor because you don't feel like the virtual learning is going to be adequate."

But low-income families and students of color have often grappled with a lack of quality instruction in some Nashville schools or have struggled to find quality child care when school is out.

"This is something that Black parents have faced for many years," Thomas said. "What happens is, we still get left out. We get left out of the picture because we don't have money to pay for the tutors, we don't have the money for the alternatives."

Pulle said Dan Mills families are trying to bridge equity gaps by connecting families who might not be able to afford to pitch in to hire a tutor or won't be able to contribute to child care and encouraging families to work together.

Anna Grace Campbell, a fourth grade teacher at Eakin Elementary School, also worries about what will happen if some kids have better access to instruction and tutors and others don't while schools are closed.

"I had a student this spring who didn't have a computer, so I got her a computer, but then she didn't have internet. I just still worry about that group at every school; that population worries me," Campbell said. "The kids who are in the pods are going to have so much more access to the curriculum. That turns into inequity in schools within grade levels. ... It just really causes this bad situation."

Campbell is also concerned about parents who are considering pulling their children out of public school districts in general.

"Some people think that, 'Oh, if they just home-school the child, it will lighten the load on teachers,' but home schooling will hurt our school. We receive funding per student," Campbell said.

She has even been approached by families willing to pay her to tutor or teach their children, but Campbell said she can't do that while teaching for Metro Schools and she wouldn't consider leaving her job — even though she'd make more money in many instances if she worked privately.

"I think I'm a little bitter because of what we are having to put in to do (virtual) teaching and other people are going to get to be able to actually work with our kids, which is why teachers do what we do," she said. 

How long students will remain in pods and whether they are effective ways to learn together is yet to be seen, but many parents still say they have to do something.

Meghan Mangrum covers education in Nashville for the USA TODAY Network - Tennessee. Contact her at mmangrum@tennessean.com. Follow her on Twitter @memangrum.