South Jersey Families Organize Pandemic Pods Ahead Of School Year

As school districts prepare to reopen this fall amid the coronavirus pandemic, many options are available that include remote learning. In fact, New Jersey school districts are required by Gov. Phil Murphy to include a 100 percent remote option in their reopening plans.

In an attempt to fight off the loneliness that can set in for students who are attending classes remotely, “pandemic pods” have begun to spring up across the country, including in South Jersey.

The Pandemic Pods-South Jersey Facebook group recently launched as part of the national effort to connect groups of children and families together regularly and in-person with measures in place to stem the spread of the coronavirus.

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This includes many informal arrangements, such as two families whose adults trade off on supervision duties so that the children can safely play and participate in their school’s remote learning offerings, according to Lian Chikako Chang, a San Francisco parent who co-founded the national group.

This can also include nanny shares, homeschool arrangements, smaller home-based preschools, playdate pods, and more formalized setups such as “microschools,” in which a teacher(s) is hired to educate a group of children in person.

The South Jersey group covers Cape May County up to Mercer County.

“We're a community of families, teachers, and caregivers with two aims: first, to connect with others in the area for pod and microschool formation; and second, to discuss local issues and share ideas as we navigate schooling and childcare during COVID-19,” the group says in a post on its page.

Members of the private group are able to further connect with localized resources, issues specific to a certain region, and networking with others in the same area, according to group organizer Michelle Caporale.

“The group includes many people: parents, caregivers, educators, citizens, and certified teachers that have an interest in supporting our children,” Caporale said. “In these current times, many people are dealing with a variety of challenging situations and no one should feel alone in navigating this new and unknown territory.”

The new and unknown territory includes what school will look like when it resumes. Parents must be notified by their district what school will look like a month before it opens, which is Sept. 8 for most New Jersey districts. Each district has its own plan, and no two look alike. Plans differ from Moorestown to Cinnaminson to Gloucester Township, Cherry Hill, Haddonfield, Lawrence; pretty much every district across the region.

There are families in the group that are working closely with their districts to express their needs and concerns heading into the new school year, Caporale said.

“Many families have attended school board meetings, township meetings, filled out surveys, written letters to government officials, and emailed superintendents,” Caporale said. “Several have documented and described what happened from March to June during the pandemic and how their challenges and issues must be addressed before this upcoming school year.”

Other families homeschool or send their children to private or parochial schools, and they have not had much contact with their local districts.

“The common thread is that everyone wants to do what is best for our children,” Caporale said. “It is a time to come together, collaborate, brainstorm, and make the best decisions for children, teachers, and parents. These Facebook groups are just one way to support one another during this unprecedented era.”

The certified teachers in the group have a variety of backgrounds and situations, Caporale said.

“Some are involved with tutoring organizations, creative non-profits, virtual learning platforms, special need coaching, counseling centers, or educational consulting,” Caporale said. “Others are stay at home parents who have taken a break from teaching in a classroom. Some are retired teachers or teachers who have just graduated from universities. There are certified teachers who currently homeschool their children. Some certified teachers have high risk medical conditions and have opted out of any in person teaching and will be involved in distance learning with their school district and/or independently. Other certified teachers are participating in a hybrid plan where they will be not be in their school district's classroom five days a week and have availability to help other children. There are so many different situations.”

There are different plans for each situation, too. Some students will gather in homes, while others will gather at a park or an art center. Some are part of a homeschooling co-op where the children are not enrolled in a public school. There are also pods in which the children are in schools as part of their district’s hybrid or remote learning model.

“Some parents will need someone to physically be with their children because they are an essential worker who is working full time outside of their home,” Caporale said. “Other parents are working at home but need assistance for their children while they concentrate on completing their own workload. In addition, there are many families in this country and internationally who have already chosen to form pods, bubbles, or quaranteams during this pandemic to limit contact with people and keep their circles small. This works as a more of a small contained extended family where children and adults can interact and socialize in healthy, safe, and relatively low-risk ways.”

The pods follow guidelines set forth by public health officials to keep children safe, although the national group has not made specific recommendations about safety.

“Keeping groups small and stable, and encouraging families to limit contacts and socially distance as much as possible during their daily lives, certainly seem like good ideas for everyone,” Chang said. “People are discussing strategies such as meeting primarily outdoors and having daily temperature and symptom checks. People are also talking about wearing masks depending on the age of the children, local health orders, pod sizes, and other risk factors. Our group’s first rule includes supporting public health guidelines, and we hope everyone follows the orders and guidance in effect where they live.”

Chang co-founded the national group with Sacramento resident Carey Knecht. Chang has a background in research, data, and communications in higher education and in tech startups.

“When I became a parent, I realized how much logistical work and cognitive load can be involved in figuring out what to do as a parent,” Chang said in a statement explaining the group. “I got interested in creating information-based resources to help parents with this, and started a blog at littldata.com. In pre-pandemic times I was working towards things like calendars of local family events, a map of fun places to take your kids, and a data-backed guide to potty training. Starting Pandemic Pods felt like a natural extension of these interests.”

When it became apparent that school districts might not be able to open in the fall, Chang launched the group for parents scrambling to make plans.

“We knew that parents across the nation had been pushed to desperation by the pandemic and the ensuing childcare crisis (among many other crises), so when we saw that school districts may not be physically re-opening in the fall, we knew that the problem was huge,” Chang said. “We did not anticipate that so many people would join our Facebook group.”

For more on the local chapter, visit the Pandemic Pods-South Jersey Facebook page.

See more stories about New Jersey's coronavirus recovery.

This article originally appeared on the Cinnaminson Patch