Ask HN: Parents, what are you doing for school this fall?

We ended up doing full-on homeschooling. Our local policies have them physically going in in about 3 weeks, or being "virtual".

We have a legally deaf-blind student that we feel will not be able to cope with everyone wearing a mask and having to be distant. (Under normal circumstances, he tends to get rather close in because he's trying to see you; he's got rather more European personal space sensibilities than American ones.) We also have a sneaking suspicion that "in person school" will last less than a week before someone coughs and everyone is sent home. (So to speak.) We think this is going to be a very unstable and destabilizing option.

The local virtual option was well established here before, but involves children sitting in front of computers for nearly the full 8 hours, as if they were at school. As adults, we're hardly willing to be on 8 hours of video call a day and asking for this from children is absurd. (I'm not too worried about the details of whether it's exactly 8 hours, the point is, they're clearly trying to function as a school day replacement rather than a school replacement; the two are not the same.)

I've also noticed my oldest is falling behind in math, because they're going just a touch faster than he can quite keep up with [1], and I've kind of wanted to fix that anyhow. I can see the memeplex forming where he realizes that there's no reason to put any effort in, because almost no matter what he does, the curriculum goes zooming on and gives him an OK grade. Even if we only do this for half a year or a year I'm hoping to have a chance to break in to this cycle.

At the moment I'm not focusing too hard on the "socialization" problem. Lockdown is precluding a lot of good solutions to that anyhow. We can address it more thoroughly later.

The main thing I'm having to reconsider is music. I still want to offer a music program, but now band isn't an option and/or is not a reliable option. (This is true even if we took the full-physical option anyhow.) We're doing a trial run of the home schooling this week (before our actual start date, so we can decide how we like it), and I'm considering trying to offer the kids some music programs involving instruments that are capable of functioning alone. I took enough piano that I could easily teach it; I'm also considering electric guitar as a versatile option that seems to have some passable electronic teaching options. (I feel like even on an instrument I don't play myself I can still fill in the gaps in such programs.)

[1]: A previous comment of mine on the topic: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23490872

At the few socially distanced gatherings I’ve been too, as well as when running into people in the streets, there’s been a lack of the usual nuance and care that I typically expect. That’s mainly expressed through less careful filtering, either of direct content or indirect content. E.g. evidence of marital strife that would normally be papered over more effectively might come out. Words are chosen less carefully causing unintended meaning to leak out. What might normally be a ‘we’ turns into ‘me’ and ‘her’.

An example from this weekend, I ran into a colleague in town who is having a hard time - his roommate moved back East in May and the core parts of his social group are either immunocompromised or left the area shortly before his current absent roommate moved in. He was having trouble masking how anxious he was. There were untimely interjections. He mentioned wishing he could talk to people who didn’t work for our company - it’s a company town and no one our age/socioeconomic class (that’s an ugly thought but I won’t go down that rabbit hole) works anywhere else. I would expect him to be more nuanced in expressing the idea of hating small talk with people that work at our company, given we were actively making small talk and I work at said company.

Maybe serious is a stretch, but I’m seeing the typical CS/engineer social deficits expressed in people who are in sales/management roles and in people who previously were more capable. It probably wouldn’t stand out in San Francisco or a tech school campus, but in my current circumstances it certainly does.

This isn’t a judgment of anyone involved - everyone I’ve talked about I love to death. As a socially awkward person myself, I tend to love and appreciate other socially awkward people. They just might run into challenges when the stakes are higher.

You pay them a small salary and provide them with food, but the biggest expense is that you have give them a place to live, which means you need an extra room in your house.

This is actually our 10th au pair, so we've had a wide variety of experiences. Some good. Some bad.

The cost and contractual obligations are easy. Agency fees are usually around $9000 for a year for a brand new au pair (it's cheaper if you extend). That covers them overseeing all aspects of the program, like background checks, facilitating contact, and organizing events for the au pairs. You pay the au pair $200 / week. I'd say our total costs are in the area of $21k / year. You also need to provide a private room for them. A real room. They can work up to 45 hours per week, 10 hours per day, no overnights and they need 36 consecutive hours where they are off per week (where "off" means they can walk out the door and be gone for those 36 hours). The contract is usually for a full year, but can be extended for an additional 6 to 12 months.

Usually our au pairs are responsible for getting the kids to school, picking them up, taking them to activities, and making sure homework gets done. This year will be...... different.

You can set up family rules. You should provide these before you match so there are no surprises (surprises are usually bad for both parties). Our rules are pretty simple; no drugs, no drunk driving, ask before you use the car, be well rested and ready to work, when you leave give us a vague idea of where you'll be and when you'll be back so we know when and which ditches to start looking in if you don't return. I'm happy to supply a redacted copy of our rules if you're that interested.

You don't need to supply things like a car or phone, but getting the best au pairs is competitive (I understand right now it's extremely competitive because nobody wants to, or can, come to the US). So we put together a kind of offer packet to make ourselves more appealing. We have a car dedicated for the au pair, but if they want to go more than 100 miles they need to pay for a service appointment. We provide a phone and a service plan. There's a community pool. And we pay for various memberships to amusement parks and museums so they have stuff to do (both with the kids and during their off time).

If things are going really bad you can go into rematch. Either the family or the au pair can trigger it, but once that's triggered the au pair has 2-3 weeks to find a new family or they are sent back. You as the family can take as long as you need, but you'll be without an au pair until you get someone. It usually takes at least 6 weeks to get a new person from out of country. It's hard for au pairs to find a rematch if they cause the rematch, especially given the short timeframe, so often they have to take a less desirable position.

We've gone into rematch twice. The first was with our very first au pair. She was really uninterested in the job because she was preoccupied with boy issues back home. The final straw with her was lying about causing a couple thousand dollars in damage to our car. The second one was at the beginning of this year. We got our first au pair from China and when she got here her English was significantly worse than when we interviewed her. The kids had a lot of trouble connecting with her, but we finally triggered rematch because she took a car she wasn't insured on out for coffee when nobody else was around. It was the third time she had done it, and after each of the first two we had someone who was a native Mandarin speaker explain to her that she couldn't take it. So in both cases the real issue was about trusting them.

We thought about going into rematch a third time. We had an au pair that was really good with the kids, but she was shockingly racist, bigoted, and fascist (she outright said people of certain races and certain religions should be executed, and when we compared it to the Spanish Inquisition she had never heard of it and then claimed that that was fake history and had never happened). It warranted a lot of discussion between us (the parents) and we decided to occasionally ask the kids if they heard her say anything like that to them. As long as she kept those opinions to herself around them it wasn't a problem, and it led to a lot of interesting discussions. Ultimately I think we softened her views.

We also had one au pair who ended our contract early. Our son has ADHD and he was just being diagnosed, so she had a really hard time with him. She decided she just didn't want to work with kids. She gave us a couple months notice which made it easy to get a replacement for her.

All in all it's been a very positive experience for us. The kids have had a wide variety of experiences with other cultures. Most of our au pairs have been European, so they've had Spanish, German, Austrian, French, and Polish influences. Our current one is our first male au pair (most agencies won't accept men), and he's been fantastic. He's from Brazil, so it's been an interesting new experience for the kids. My best friend married one of our au pairs (they were about 2 years apart in age) and moved to Austria with her. We stay in contact with most of them (even the rematches; our last rematch texted me last week asking for a couple of my recipes). We've also set up little vacation "franchises" around the world, and have traveled to Europe with the kids to visit ex-au pairs a couple times.

Happy to answer any more specific questions.

We are very proud of introducing diversity and inclusion into our program. It's of critical importance that we learn to think deeply about the systemic racism in our society - as students and educators. A good education is well-rounded and helps children understand history and social systems in a broad way, not limited to a certain group or perspective. Race, racial tensions and inequity are some of the biggest issues facing society today. Our kids are worried about it and they are the ones who are going to be helping change the way our society runs. They need to be prepared to think about this, analyze multiple view points and make intelligent and informed decisions. Hiding it from them will help no one. Education is about illumination, not casting shadows over what is happening and what has happened before us. While some may be leaving the school system because schools are finally addressing these issues, many also are homeschooling because they feel these topics are not adequately integrated into our curriculum.