EDUCATION: ‘Equity hubs’ give families struggling financially a chance at pandemic pods

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Sat, 2020-12-26 11:03 — mike kraft

‘Equity hubs’ give families struggling financially a chance at pandemic pods “This has been a blessing for us,” said one Maryland mother, praising the program. Donna St. George Washington Post

Nine months after the pandemic closed down Stedwick Elementary School, learning in suburban Montgomery County is still all remote. But while most students plug in on laptops from home, some are on campus, working from holiday-decorated classrooms.

They are part of “equity hubs” that bring small groups of children together, so that parents who struggle financially have a safe, supervised place for their children to focus on online learning. The hubs are akin to the “pandemic pods” that more affluent families have created, often hiring tutors or teachers.

“This has been a blessing for us,” said Lindsay Montgomery, a single mother of three who lives in Rockville, Md., and said the program has allowed her to work in the afternoons without bringing her 5-year-old along. It also has helped him keep up in kindergarten, she said.

The program, located at roughly 45 public schools in the Maryland county, opened in mid-September with a handful of students and grew steadily. More than 1,050 students are now enrolled.

Among those who participate, the average family income is less than $30,000 a year, and nearly all children qualify for free and reduced-price school meals. Families pay up to $50 a month per child.

“This is an effort for equity for people who can’t afford to hire a teacher or do the things that other parts of the county can do,” said Byron Johns, co-founder of the Black and Brown Coalition for Educational Equity and Excellence, which advocated for the project.

The program is funded through the Children’s Opportunity Fund, a public-private partnership in Montgomery that raised $550,000 to launch it. Since then, it has received $3.6 million in grant money from the school system and county government.

But the future is unclear. The funding lasts through the end of January; school and county government officials are expected to discuss further funding in coming weeks. ...

Those involved say the pandemic has exacerbated the wide gap between students with resources and students without — and shows how much parents depend on schools to oversee their children while they work. ...

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