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When teacher Julia Keller was laid off from her job at a charter school, she created a Facebook page to advertise her services as an educator. Calls, texts and emails flooded in from parents wanting her to lead their “pandemic pods."
For Keller, 50, and other experienced educators, the rising trend of these small group pods, also known as micro-schools, presents an opportunity. Parents unhappy with K-12 offerings during this pandemic era are seeking educators to teach small groups of children, both in face-to-face settings and online.
Keller, of Pebble Beach, California, will be working with three families and anticipates developing a closer relationship with her elementary and middle-school age students, while replacing some of her lost income. She'll also be exposed to fewer students, with a lower risk of contracting COVID-19.
"It quickly became clear there is a ton of demand for this,” Keller says. And the experience will be “totally different from standing at the front of a classroom.”
The emergence of pandemic pods — a new way of schooling — is offering educators options and may be particularly attractive to older teachers. Some are coming out of retirement, while others have been laid off or are frustrated with remote learning. Some want to limit their coronavirus risk as schools reopen. Of the nation's 3.3 million full- and part-time public school teachers, nearly a third are 50 or older, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.
Julia Keller will be teaching students in a pandemic pod this year.
Courtesy of Julia Keller
These veteran teachers are being wooed, in some cases, by families seeking high-quality educational instruction and by companies offering to help families create pandemic pods.
"Someone who has experience and is retired, I think they would have no problem being hired,” says Steve Eno, cofounder of Impact Connections, a learning pod network based in Maryland. “The supply of teachers is not enough to meet the demand."
