Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
The voice of the American Consortium for Equity in Education at ace-ed.org | Host Larry Jacobs facilitates rich discussions with innovative educators, thought leaders, authors and the leaders within the education industry to promote equity, access and opportunity for every student in every school.
I'm David Cicero, and this
is Education Talk Radio.
For generations, we've had a
fairly simple definition of school.
Students went to one building five
days a week, where most of their
learning happened under one roof.
Today, that picture is
becoming much more complicated.
Students learn through online
courses, dual enrollment,
internships, AI tutors, micro schools,
homeschooling, the list goes on.
They're experiences that extend well
beyond a traditional classroom, so
it raises a fascinating question.
Have we outgrown our traditional
definition of school?
Today's guest has spent years
studying one of the most significant
shifts taking place in education.
Dr.
Eric Wearne is assistant professor of
economics at Kennesaw State University,
director of the National Hybrid Schools
Project, and author of "Little Platoons:
Defining Hybrid Home Schools in America."
Dr.
Wearne, thanks for coming on.
Thank you so much for having me.
Really excited to have you on today,
so I'm just gonna jump right in.
For most of modern public
education, we've largely thought
of school as a single institution
responsible for educating a child.
When you look at education today,
in what ways do you think that
definition is beginning to break down?
Yeah.
Well, quick definition, since,
since hybrid means about five
different things right now.
Uh, when we talk about-- when I
talk about hybrid schools, I'm not
talking about these, uh, sort of
pandemic-era remote days where some
kids are on campus and some are not.
Uh, I'm not talking
about online schooling.
A hybrid school is a school, uh, which
could be public or private or charter or
a group of homeschoolers that, uh, meets
physically a few days a week with teachers
and a curriculum and, and, uh, and
classmates, and students are then at home
with their families the rest of the week.
So the, the National Hybrid Schools
Project is the research effort that I run
here at Kennesaw State that studies them.
So we do, uh, academic research,
including annual surveys, and we
host convenings of these schools.
And, umâ¦
But this is all actually a good
way into your question, right?
Because the model of schools that we all
have in our heads, which is, you know,
one building, five days a week, is itself,
um, a, a sort of recent invention, right?
So only about 100 or 150 years old.
Uh, sort of a product of the common
school movement, uh, and then compulsory
attendance laws, and then, uh,
mid-20th century school consolidations.
So when we talk about, uh, definitions
beginning to break down, what we're
not watching is some kind of eternal
institution cracking apart, right?
What we're watching is one, uh,
historically contingent bundle sort of
going back to its roots a little bit.
Schools today, I, I think bundle a
lot of distinct functions, right?
They serve as, uh, they do instruction,
they do, uh, custody and childcare, they
do credentialing, they do socialization,
meals, athletics, special education
services, and we bundle all those
things together for practical reasons.
But, but they're starting to unbundle
as we have, um, more ways to do
that, and I, I think we'll talk
about ways we're gonna do that.
Um, but this is already happening
inside public education itself, right?
Dual enrollment is maybe
the biggest single example.
We've got all these, uh, online course
providers coming in and offering a course
here and there, um, CTE partnerships Um,
but specifically to hybrid schools, you
know, we, I mentioned that we survey them.
We survey them every year, and we
typically find that somewhere north
of 50% of the kids who, again, go
to a physical building multiple days
a week, uh, are legally registered
with their state as homeschoolers.
So they attend a school with teachers on
a regular schedule, and the categories
that we use, uh, can't see that, right?
So, so when the administrative
categories that we use consistently
stop describing what families actually
do in real life, I think that's the
picture of the definition breaking down.
You mentioned this unbundling that we're
starting to see, and that actually kind
of leads me into my, my next question.
Um, the, the title of your book comes
from Edmund Burke's idea of the little
platoons of society, small local
communities that help shape who we become.
What can the history of education and
the history of civil society teach us
about the role families and communities
have always played in educating children?
And in some sense, the way you describe
it as unbundling makes it feel like
we're, we're kind of getting, it's
almost like a natural unbundling into a
way that, um, maybe might work better,
but it's definitely pointing us back.
So looking to learn a
little bit more about that.
Yeah.
So we do have, uh, it, the, we
do have a history of this, right?
So, so the, the unbundling is, is,
like I said, in a s- and you said,
in a sense, kind of remembering
things that we've done in the past.
So, right, the, the title of
that book, uh, comes from Edmund
Burke, but then it's echoed by
Russell Kirk in the 1970s, right?
So for most of the history of American
education, schooling was kind of
a local community function, right?
In the, in the colonies, we had dame
schools, um, where, you know, someone
would just hang out a shingle and
teach us, and teach a group of kids.
We had, um, uh, these things called,
uh, pit schools before the Civil War
and, and then, uh, again, um, freedmen
schools after the Civil War where,
where, um, you know, African American
communities would come together and
just do schooling on their own, right?
It was, it was, uh, um, James Anderson,
uh, documented this, gosh, maybe 30 years
ago now, um, about, you know, education
reformers after the Civil War going
down to, um, to help start schools and
discovering that, that the freed people
had, had set up schools all over the
South on their own without anybody's help.
Um, we, so we've got church
schools, we've got apprenticeships.
We've z- we've got a long history
of, of kind of this do it yourself
attitude in schooling, um, with
small local communities, right?
The, the, the big state-provided
common school sort of was the
innovation that changed things.
Uh, but Burke's point, um, isn't that
just small is automatically good, right?
It's, it's that the affections and
obligations that, that sort of hold
the society together are learned
in the, in the, um, proximate,
the particular, the nearby, right?
Not by abstract ideas, right?
So Tocqueville saw the same thing and
when he traveled around America and
saw all the, the little associations
that we set up in daily life.
Um, so, you know, a, a neighborhood public
school could be a little platoon, right?
The th- the threat to the little
platoon idea isn't, um, the public
provision, it's the, the distance
from the decision-making, right?
The scale, the size of the schools, um,
and the kind of the drift of decisions
away from the people who have to live
with the everyday consequences, right?
So, so even today, no school produces
learning all by itself, right?
Every teacher, um, listening to
this podcast already knows that.
Um, hybrid schools just make this,
this, um, th- this size factor
and this, uh, kind of relationship
between the home and the school more
structural rather than something you
kind of hope that you can pull out
of the, the community that you have.
Well, one of the brief examples you
gave was so interesting, I think,
that as, um, the, the person in your
example, I, I, I forget the details
at the moment, um, when looking to go
set up schools, they found that the
communities had already set up schools.
And that, that's, that's really, um,
thought-provoking for me, as if we as
humans saw this need, and this is however
school was already happening, however
education was already happening locally,
this is the way that we sort of naturally
developed what education should look like
to serve perhaps our, our local community.
Um, and I'm not sure that one's
necessarily better than the other,
and I don't wanna try to make that
sort of distinction, but whatâ¦
The question it kinda raises for me, I'm
wondering if you could speak to just a
moment, is I, I'm trying to understand the
benefits of it being local, but also ifâ¦
You know, it seems like there has to
be a larger than local piece to that
if we expect children to, to grow
and people to contribute to society
outside of that, of that local space.
How is that balance
thought about in your work?
I think one of the, one of the, um-
The aspects that attracts people
to these schools is not-- Right,
like, there's two ways of thinking
about size and scale, right?
One of them is the, the place that
you go every day, and another one,
um, is, is sort of the, the, the
project that you're a part of, right?
So, so a lot of these schools, um,
will set up because they, they have a
particular vision of education, right?
Whether it's, it's classical or
self-directed or kind of, you know,
outdoor-focused or whatever it is.
Um, and it's, and it's really
hard to pull together, um, a
really large, you know, uh, like a
thousand-student school that can serve
kind of, kind of niche needs, right?
Um, so, so people end up liking,
uh, these smaller institutions that
they go visit every day, right?
Or every, every couple of days,
uh, where they do their schooling.
But they also like being part
of a larger network around the
country, and I think technology has
kind of, um, enabled that, right?
So, so you might have your little
classical school or your little, um,
self-directed school or your forest school
that serves a f- you know, less than
100 students, but you know there are,
you have friends all around the country
who are doing similar things, right?
So I think, I think the way that people
participate in things that are larger
than themselves is kind of, um, you
know, serving their, their immediate
kids and their immediate communities
locally and then meeting friends around
the country who are doing similar things.
Um, so rather than scaling schools
by making an individual school go
from 100 kids to 1,000, you just,
uh, plant more schools, right?
Uh, so that's, I, I think kind
of the way they, they, they
deal with both of those needs.
My next question was actually,
what are hybrid schools teaching
us about where education is headed?
And listening to you the, the, the past,
uh, answering the last question, I,
I'm wondering, is it, is this natural
development back towards a more hybrid
model indicative of a need to have closer
ties to their, to their local community
and be able to contribute locally and
to something larger than themselves?
Yeah, I think it's both
of those things, right?
I think, I think, you know, there were,
there were practical reasons for school
consolidations in the, in the, you
know, the middle of the 20th century on.
Um, th- and those are financial
and they're, they're practical.
Um, but, but you know, we hear--
we start hearing more about
these things now because they
became more popular after COVID.
Um, but this kind of th- this sort
of procession, this movement has
been around since at least the 1980s,
so that's, that's been a minute.
Um, th- these school models were
kind of growing in popularity in
the 2000s and 2010s because, uh,
I think homeschooling was becoming
more socially acceptable, right?
Um, online communities were
finding each other, like I said,
and we've had this desire for more
individualization and s- just smaller
environments, um, for a while.
I think, I think the consolidations
maybe just overshot a little bit, right?
So this, this phenomenon was
happening, and then, like with so
many other things in, in life, right?
This thing was happening, and
then COVID just accelerated it.
Um, so, so you know, it, it-- the
popularity is new, but I think the,
the, the feeling or the vibe has been
going on for, you know, 40 years or so.
So I think, but I think what the signal
is saying is that families want some
changes in structure and time, right?
So we've, we've maybe overshot the size
of institutions that we feel comfortable
with, and we're kind of reverting back
to, uh, something closer to what we like.
Um, but also time, right?
Two or three days of a real school with
real teachers, but also days at home, um,
so that you don't feel like, um, uh, you
know, you know, grind culture is popular
with some people, but others not, right?
So, so you want kind of
more time and maybe a slower
pace of life, uh, sometimes.
Um, so, and I should point out that
I think this is a schedule preference
and a family life preference much more
than it's an ideological one, right?
We see schools of all different
kinds showing up with these similar
organizational forms, right?
J- think too just about the
popularity of, um, working from home
now and how that's changed, right?
I, I, I mean, I think we're talking
about in the context of schools, but
this similar things have happened,
uh, with, with office workers, right?
Um, a- a- another point of this
that I think is, is maybe salient,
um, and has definitely changed the
market is the tuition, because these
schools are, are, are part-time.
Um, most of their teachers
are very part-time.
Uh, they often rent space
instead of owning it.
And so they're-- the-- based on
our surveys, the, the average
tuition is a little over $6,000.
The median's around 5,500.
So this is significantly under
per-student spending almost anywhere,
and it's even under most of the
education savings account bills that
have been proposed in various states.
Um, so families are, are paying for a
partial year of professional instruction,
and they're doing the rest themselves,
and that, those differences have opened
up the market to a whole lot more people.
I should just mention, just to, to, to
finish this thought, the teachers too,
from a teacher's perspective, um, this
evolution changes the role of teachers.
Lots of, uh, hybrid and micro-school
founders, uh, come from public school
district classrooms, uh, and just
wanted a different sort of working life.
Um, and a lot of-- so they're operating
as founders, but also a lot of teachers
in these schools are former public school
teachers who want to keep teaching, but
maybe with a more relaxed weekly schedule.
So I think, I think the future
just holds, uh, more of all of this
in various different directions.
So if, if learning is becoming more
distributed across schools, family,
community, et cetera, how would you
describe-- I, I really like the way you
said, you know, perhaps in terms of the
sort of formal education instit- insti-
institution, we may have overshot a
bit and, you know, we might go through
years of, you didn't say this, but,
uh, some type of correction, right?
So how would you describe the unique
value that schools do provide within
that larger educational ecosystem?
Yeah.
So I, I, uh, I, I have written this
up somewhere, but I, I, I liken
it sometimes to, to Napster if, if
your listeners remember Napster.
Oh, yep.
I do.
It was an interestingâ¦
Yeah.
It was a new service, uh, for, for sharing
music files, um, and it caused chaos
for about 18 months in the early 2000s.
Um, but, but we can't, you know,
we're not used to, or, or we're not
comfortable with chaos, so eventually
things kind of settled down.
So I think we're kind of in a
Napster moment right now w- uh,
with, with schooling, where we're,
we're sort of, um, uh, unstable.
Things are changing and evolving,
and people are experimenting with
things, uh, all over the place.
I think eventually we'll get to a, to a
more steady state, but we're not there
yet, and this, so this is a fun time.
Um, but you asked about the unique,
the unique value that schools bring.
Um, and I think the main thing is,
is a theme that I keep bringing
up, which is community, right?
So I'm in the South, and one thing
you do lose when people go to lots of
little schools instead of one big one
is things like, um, everyone rooting
for the same local football team, right?
Like, that'sâ¦
I think that's a good thing, and
so there are trade-offs, right?
Um, but, but related to that is
another value that schools can provide,
which is just, uh, sustained adult
relationships across time, right?
So, uh, something like an a
la carte provider of one class
might see a kid for a semester.
Um, but a school that exists for
a while watches a child grow up
and knows when something's wrong.
Um, a lot of these hybrid and micro
schools are forming because people
are not feeling that sense of smaller
sustained relationships in the
big schools that they've been at.
So they're creating their own small
communities to fill that need, right?
So I think, I think that is a, a,
a value that schools could, could,
um, just recognize and think about a
little more, uh, i- if they're watching
students leave for some of these schools.
Bec- I mean, conventional schools are
the default provider, and I don't think
that's really gonna totally change, right?
They're the institution that takes
every, every child regardless of
whether a parent can, can pay a
dollar in tuition or can homeschool.
Um, so the hybrid model presupposes
an available adult at home
at least part of the time.
Um, a lot of these hybrid schools
are, are working on ways to be more
inclusive, um, and they've already
opened up more schools of choice to
a lot more, to a lot more families,
but, but that's a real constraint.
So I think, I think, you know, the, the,
um, being the default and, and, and being
kind of a community anchor are, are, are
still things that public schools have.
One of the examples you
mentioned was community.
Um, you know, rooting for
the same football team.
Yeah.
Outside of education, I kinda see that
in society, 'cause sometimes I sit around
and I think to myself, "You know what?
There was a time where every
Thursday at 8:00 PM everybody was
watching ER or something," right?
Mm-hmm.
Everybody was watching Friends,
and I, I, I feel like we're all
in our own little bubble now.
We don't have this sort of shared,
um, experience, um, at least, you
know, through, through entertainment.
Um, and I-- But I think that also
afforded us with something that sort of
gave us a a, a vision of what, like, a
family looked like, what the style was
at the time, what the, you know- Yeah
people sort of had when I was,
when I was a kid growing up, was
kind of had this idea of we're all
kind of in the same place, living
in the same, you know, world.
And, and now it feels
a bit more fragmented.
Whether that's good or bad, not sure,
but it, it just reminded me of that.
No, yeah, I think you're totally right.
We haveâ¦
So we have more shows now, for
example, and they're better.
But they're, they're qualitatively better.
Um, but, but we- but there's a loss.
There's a trade-off to that, right?
We do lose all the, all the, all
the, the inside jokes that we
had kind of as a culture, right?
By, by, by not having, um, you know,
appointment television anymore.
Yeah.
Yeah, absolutely.
I mean, even, like, shuttle launches.
Right.
I, you know, a few years back, um, SpaceX
did a shuttle launch, and I found it on
Y- I mean, I didn't even hear about it.
I ran- Mm-hmm ⦠across it randomly,
and I was like, "Oh, I've got to
watch this with my son," and we
found it on YouTube or whatever.
It was being live-streamed.
But when I was a kid, I mean, they
pulled the TV in and every- I mean,
everyone saw the shuttle launch, right?
We were kind of in this together.
I don't know how to explain it, and
I'm still trying to sort of understand
what the value was of that, what
we've lost and what the value is
perhaps, or how we experience how we're
connected to the world around us today.
Yeah.
It, it's interesting too, isn't it?
That we, we have all these new, these new,
um, unique experiences, but, but it'sâ¦
At the same time, it gives
us all these choices, but it
also flattens things, right?
So it used to mean something to
be from the South or from New York
or from California or wherever,
but now, uh, you know, we don't
have appointment television, but
we've all got this weird kind of
default culture happening around us.
So- Yeah ⦠so it's, it's,
it's an odd, it's an oddâ¦
I'm not sure, you know, what the
right answer is, but there, there
are definitely, um, um, positives
and negatives to all this.
Yeah, for sure.
I'm, I'm, I'm thinking, uh, back
on the education side now, right?
Um, we kind of, you know, you said, you
know, community, rooting for the same
football team, sustained relationships.
It almost started to become a list
of, you know, perhaps what schools
should really, like, double down on.
I know that we'll kind of
get, um, to that a bit.
Where my head is right now is, you
know, the, the responsibility of
schooling in general as it becomes
shared across many institutions,
accountability becomes more complicated.
And so I'm wondering, what are your
thoughts on how we preserve a coherent
educational experience when no single
organization is doing everything?
Yeah.
Accountability is a tricky word.
I think we have to be, first be
clear about what we mean by, um,
accountability and success, right?
So, um, I think we should separate
two things that kind of get conflated
sometimes, which is, uh, which are,
uh, the accountability of a system to
the public, and then accountability
to a family, right, from a school.
So, um, you know, you, you asked
about ac- how, how it becomes more
complicated and how we keep it coherent.
Well, the data are hard to come by
because this is, like, an ongoing, uh,
struggle for, for me as a researcher.
Uh, because as I said, some of these
schools are, uh, public, some are
charter, uh, and they generate some data.
Uh, but others are private or they're
homeschoolers, and even the public
ones aren't always classified clearly.
So, so yeah, your point is right.
Ev- things are kind of mixed up now.
Um, and so we have to think about, uh,
what success and accountability mean
at these schools or to these schools.
And so one way to do that is
just by asking them, right?
"What do you care about?"
Uh, so some, some co-authors and I,
uh, surveyed hybrid school leaders,
and we found, um, that they actually
said they cared about things like, f-
as, as the goal of their school, right?
They cared about things like whether
their graduates could get, um, decent
jobs, whether they could vo- whether
they volunteered and voted, um,
whether they got married, you know?
Um, what they, what they did not prefer,
uh, as, or what they said they did not
care about so much was, was test scores
or college entrances, which are much,
much, much easier to measure, right?
Um, so you can see these, these are the
kinds of things, right, volunteering,
voting, marriage, um, that typical
school data isn't gonna measure, but
they're the kind of things that both,
uh, the school and the family can affect.
And, and that's what these school leaders
and, and their families care about.
So, um So is it gonna be co-coherent?
I don't know.
I think it's gonna be very, um, uh,
contingent and dependent on the kind
of school that a kid goes to, right?
So how does that all fit with
our conventional wisdom of,
or our conventional vision
of school accountability?
You know, again, it's different, right?
Maybe some of your listeners will
remember the band 38 Special, right?
Who, who told us in the early
1980s to hold on loosely, right?
If you cling too tightly,
you're gonna lose control.
I think one big change that we're needing
to move on from accountability, uh,
is, is this, um, you know, technocratic
sort of bean counting, right?
And towards a situation where we
kind of give more honor to parents'
choices a- and, and value that as
a signal of accountability, right?
'Cause they're gonna choose these schools
no matter what the bean counters say.
These, these school models are
not gonna go away, and in fact,
they're still growing, right?
So kids' experiences are gonna
be different, but I think more
families and more students will,
will feel served and be happier.
I recently had a, a conversation
with Chris Dede out of Harvard.
We talked about educational technologies.
Mm-hmm.
I'm seeing kind of aâ¦
There's some type of a- a- analogous
inspiration or thought here, and
it, it almost sounds like the way
school is changing in terms of who's
responsible for children's education
and how it, how it actually happens
and takes place, is leading folks to
ask themselves, "Well, what kind of
people do we want to help create?"
Right?
Instead of perhaps, you know, just looking
at the numbers, we're stepping back
and saying, "Okay, well, let's hold on.
Let's, let's, let's think
about what we're trying toâ¦
The kind of person that we are,
are, are trying to create and
then send off in- into society."
And during the Chris Dede interview,
um, it was about how, how we think
about choosing and utilizing educational
technologies in the classroom, and
the major takeaway there was, well,
let's step back first and think about
what kind of learning experience
are we trying to create, right?
We don't start with the, you know,
the test score or the technology.
Before any of that comes, right, we
need to step back and ask this question.
I feel like we're in this moment
where we're everyone is stepping
back saying, "Wait a minute.
Let's think about first principles here."
Are you, are you sensing that too?
Yeah, very much so, and people
disagree, which is kind of a, a, a
benefit of these schools too, right?
So, so for example, um, there are,
there are schools-- I'm not sure this
is totally gonna work, um, who, who will
absolutely, who, who, whose, um whose
goal is to, not goal, but one of their
approaches is to, is to just totally
ban AI from their classrooms, right?
Um, there are other schools
that are built on AI, right?
So, so we're not really coming
to agreement on these things, but
we're, but we're able to kind of
make a bunch of small bets, right?
Or a bunch of small experiments and
kind of see how things shake out.
And so I think that's part of the kind
of the unstable moment that we're in,
is that we're, like you said, we're
trying to go back to first principles
because we're not jumping in with
both feet and building a building
for 5,000 kids at one time, right?
We're building a bunch of small
ones But we have different first
principles, so what is that gonna
look like over the long term?
I think that's an open question.
Yeah, absolutely.
In fact, there's a great
book called "Little Bets".
Yeah, yeah.
And, and it's actually fairly, um, I
mean, it's super refreshing to see some
of this happening where we're, we're
sort of stepping back and making these,
these small bets, these little bets, and,
and willing to do some experimentation.
What I ho- what I'm hoping is
that over time we, we see, we
don't see these little bets asâ¦
How do I say it?
Um, I mean, the, the idea of a little bet
is that you're not betting at all, right?
Right.
So, you know, I just think the, a, a lot
of times, let's just say competing goals,
uh, you know, among stakeholders and
education organizations and states and
governments, it sometimes it feels like
if we do this, it's gotta work, right?
This is- Yes ⦠like this, we're all in.
It's gotta work.
This is the thing.
And then if, you know, so often
it's not the thing, and we end up
reflecting and revising anyway,
even on super large initiatives.
And so what I'm hoping is, I'm hoping
we are in this, in this space of like a
true little bet where it's like, okay,
we're open to this and maybe not being
the answer this year, but we've got
a, you know, X number year plan, and
we're willing to, you know, continue
to prototype until we find something
that the, um, that is really working.
Um- Yeah, it's much easier for these
little schools to iterate and, and
kind of evolve over time, um, than
it is in a bigger, in a bigger, to
turn a bigger ship around, right?
Yeah.
Sure.
Yeah.
For sure, for sure.
So we're circling this idea of
essentially, to put it very simply,
of formal school building not needing
to be the best at everything, right?
Mm-hmm.
They don't have to have
all the right answers.
They don't have to provide
every single thing for the, the,
the, the student potentially.
So if that's true, I'm wondering about
how these formal institutions and these
smaller educational institutions like m-
micro schools and community educational
organizations share with each other.
Mm-hmm.
I'm wondering which responsibilities
school leaders should think about to
intentionally share with other schools so
they can focus on what they're uniquely
positioned to do really, really well.
Yeah.
So here's a test, right?
So th- a school leader could ask
themselves, um, does doing this thing
in-house, whatever it is, make, make
the thing better for kids, or does
it just keep it in-house, right?
So if, if a micro school or a hybrid
school or a community college is doing
something better, maybe the district's
job is, is to provide access, not
necessarily to, to duplicate it, right?
Um- A lot of the instructional
demand in, in the hybrid school world
focuses on things like, um, teaching
kids initially how to read, right?
Um, and that's definitely true as
the, as the, the sector has moved from
being mostly homeschoolers to, um,
people who now, you know, instead of
thinking, "Well, I'm gonna go to either,
you know, the local public school,
or if I can scrape up enough money,
I'll go to the local private school,"
um, now they have a bunch of options.
Um, but, but, but that initially
teaching kids how to read is
a hold-up for a lot of people.
Um, and then on the other end, it's on
higher level high school content, right?
That'sâ¦
So those two places are where a, a lot
of parents are looking for support.
Um, th- you know, those and
athletics and activities, right?
So in between those, though, there's a
lot of room for schools to give parents
space and to experiment with things.
Um, one practical shift that, that s-
that schools might have to face is,
that, that a school leader should have
to face, is to think, you know, to change
the question from, uh, "How do I manage
the seats that I have had filled for me
because people live close to my school?"
to, uh, "What's my relationship
with the families who might want
some of what we offer," right?
So I, I can, uh, uh, I can think of
a school in, uh, there's a school in
eastern Tennessee, um, that had, uh,
they're in a location in a very rural
area, and they had, if, if the national
average of homeschoolers is, is around
5%, they had something like 20%.
It was, it wasâ¦
I may be wrong about the exact numbers.
Yeah.
But it was some massive multiple
of, of homeschool students.
And so the school asked itself, you
know, "How, how could we help, h- how
might we bring some of these kids in?"
And what they did was they
started a hybrid school.
So the kids, if I'm remembering correctly,
they could choose how many days they
came, uh, even down to one day a week.
But that brought in a bunch of people
to, for various reasons, right?
They wanted various different things
like, you know, m- "Teach my kid how
to read and then I'm gonna homeschool
again," or, uh, "He's in high school
and I need help with that," right?
So, so, so teachers or, or school
leaders can think about things
like, you know, part-time enrollment
policies, a la cart course access,
um, you know, letting some of these
families take one class or join a team.
Um, you know, I get it.
These are all, like, much more complicated
than I'm making them sound, right?
Um- For sure.
But, but the world is
complicated now, right?
So that's kind of, th- these are some
ways that schools could kind of, like,
figure out what their best services are
and what people are wanting from them.
Thanks for joining us on Education Talk
Radio, a part of the B Podcast Network.
If there's a topic you'd like us to
tackle or have a guest idea, send me
a message at dciceroedutalk@gmail.com.
Thanks for listening, and
we'll see you next time.