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

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

#161
We had our lockdown in April and May, including homeschooling our two kids of 5 and 11. We're fortunate to have a pretty big house for a city, but still space could be cramped: we have a parents' bedroom, living room and balcony upstairs, and a children's bedroom and large work/game/guest/second livingroom downstairs.

Quite often, my wife was working upstairs, I downstairs, my oldest son in his room, and my youngest son was mostly playing and watching TV with the occasional school-related lesson on a tablet. On Thursdays, our cleaner would come, and we all had to cram into half the house while she cleaned the other half, or we had to leave the house. Sometimes we ended up working in bed or on the balcony.

My oldest son was quite capable of doing his own schoolwork, though he's always finished way too quickly and spent the rest of the day gaming, so this made his gaming addiction a lot worse in retrospect, but at the time, he didn't need much attention. Or youngest did, though. It's hard to work when a 5-year-old wants your attention. But our regular babysitter had all her other babysitting jobs and restaurant jobs cancelled, so eventually we hired her 3 days a week to entertain and teach our youngest, and that worked very well. I still ended up shifting a lot of work to the evenings and weekends, which works fine: play with your kids during the day, work in the evening. There's not much else to do anyway.

So the isolation wasn't perfect because of outside help, but that did make it bearable. We always kept a lot of distance from our cleaner (who always wore masks and gloves), and the babysitter didn't have much else going on in her life anymore, so we figured she wasn't a big risk.

So I guess that's my advice: adopt a near-permanent babysitter. There are probably plenty who are currently our of a job, and as long as they don't do much else than babysit at your place and go back to their own home, they're not a big risk. Get someone responsible, though; not a party animal.

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

#162

Single dad here in a small apartment with a 7yo whose school went fully remote. I switched to a reduced-hours contractor status at my day job and went "full-time" on my side project so I can make my own schedule. I do the bulk of my focused work either after my kid goes to bed or before she starts school for the day. During the day when she's in class, it seems like every class period, there's at least one or two tec…

I really admire you for doing this on your own with kids in a small apartment. Does your teacher use zoom? One thing that's helped me a lot with my digital pod so the parents don't have to be interrupted is installing software where I can access the child's computer. I also enable screen share for everyone. If your child's teacher is open to getting support to making this more easy for families, I'd be happy to talk…

Zoom did not work at all for my 5-year old. He just can't focus on people on a screen. Every day at 10, his class would have a zoom meeting, but we quickly gave up on those. It just doesn't work for him.

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

#163
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi:) I can answer this. I'm the founder of Modulo. Modulo can be used as a supplement or replacement for school. If families want to use it as a replacement, they need to register as homeschoolers, but we help families make sure their kids are on track academically and developmentally. feel free to be in touch if you have any questions. My email is manisha@modulo.app

This is a great idea. You probably would get more business if you didn't have workshops for 'undoing white supremacy' and 'racismo' Many of the ppl that will be homeschooling are doing so bc of the blm education being introduced in schools- it isn't just about covid. https://www.modulo.app/notmyidea

I don't think wanting to teach your kids to be racist, and keeping them away from ideas that might challenge that, is a very good reason to homeschool.

It's important that kids grow up knowing that there are different people out there, with different backgrounds, different ideas, different skin colours, and indeed that some people have been treated differently in the past, and often still are. A too sheltered upbringing is not doing your kid any favours.

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

#164
post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 issue…

Focusing on race is what keeps people focusing on race. It's fundamentally divisive. Teaching children to think of everything in terms of race is the biggest factor in perpetuating racism. I suppose there is a market for that, and you're serving it, making money as you divide society.

That is exactly why it's important for kids to learn about that divide, and to break through it. To understand the experience of other people, to recognise the injustice of it, and to do something to change that.

The division is caused by treating with different skin colour or ethnic background as lesser, or as criminals. Pretending it doesn't exist doesn't make it go away. It's real, and it needs to be addressed. Making kids more aware of that is absolutely important.

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

#165

I have 2 in elementary and one in middle school. Our public schools will supposedly open physical classes with an online option as well. You need to pick and commit to one. I'm strongly in the physical camp for many reasons, most importantly the online school in the spring was garbage and a lack of socialization at this age is a very real and serious public health concern-for healthy young kids with no underlying hea…

> lack of socialization at this age is a very real and serious public health concern-for healthy young kids with no underlying health issues maybe as important as COVID itself Lack of socialization - for a few months - is as serious as a disease that's killing people by the hundreds of thousands? Even if the kids themselves are at lower risk, they can transmit the disease to parents as well as teachers, who are much…

My 11 year old son gets most of his socialisation online these days. It's not ideal; I wish he'd go out more, but under the circumstances, it's actually quite convenient.

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

#166
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It looks like child-child and child->adult transmission is very rare. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/07/200710100934.h... We don't know why yet.

Older Children Spread the Coronavirus Just as Much as Adults, Large Study Finds: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/18/health/coronavirus-childr...

Yeah, it's mostly elementary age children who don't seem to spread it. Teenagers seem to be just as bad as adults. In Netherland, recent infections come mostly from older teenagers and young twenty-somethings.

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

#167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the cost and experience of having an au pair, like ?

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 / we…

Great reply, thanks for the detailed information. Quite obviously during this time, having a live in au pair would have been helpful. I would be interested in seeing the specific rules you made, from experience (email is slightly obfuscated in my profile). I wouldn't be able to afford the 21k/yr price tag, even if that is a really good price.

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

#168
post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 / we…

Which agencies have you used?

We've used Au Pair in America (https://www.aupairinamerica.com/), but we are currently using Cultural Care (https://culturalcare.com/). I don't have particularly strong feelings on either in general, but we switched because our local coordinator had gotten pretty flaky.

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

#169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 / we…

Great reply, thanks for the detailed information. Quite obviously during this time, having a live in au pair would have been helpful. I would be interested in seeing the specific rules you made, from experience (email is slightly obfuscated in my profile). I wouldn't be able to afford the 21k/yr price tag, even if that is a really good price.

The doc we share is pretty long, but it can be broken down into:

  - Welcome Message
  - Basic Information about the Family
  - Details about the kids
  - Health and Safety
  - Au Pair's Responsibilities
  - Sample Schedule
  - Basic House Rules
  - Pay and Vacation
  - Driving
  - Other Perks
  - Law & Safety
  - Guest Policy
  - Reasons We Would Ask You to Leave
Like I said, our issues have usually revolved around trust, but we have also identified a few things that are hard rules for rematch:

  - Drunk driving (we encourage them to take a cab or call us for pickup)
  - Hard drugs
  - Abuse of anyone, especially the kids and pets.
  - Neglect
  - Repeatedly not caring for the children when it’s their responsibility
  - Outright lying to us.
The other rules that really matter to them are:

  - No taking the car more than ~60 miles without prior approval and you pay for a service appointment. 
When an au pair has free use of a car, other au pairs in the area pressure them to be the driver for weekend road trips. We had one au pair put 30,000 miles on the car in a year because of this.

  - If you're going out for the evening let us know roughly where you'll be and when you'll be back, and keep your phone charged. 
We had one au pair that didn't tell us anything about where she was going, only a rough estimate of when she'd be back. At one point she didn't get home until 36 hours after she told us she'd be back. We had been calling police and hospitals in the area because we were worried about her. It turned out she had gone to a club with friends, met another girl there, the other girl offered to drive her home so the friends left, then on the way home the other girl suddenly deviated and went to a house party on Treasure Island (in the middle of the San Francisco bay) and then proceeded to get completely wasted leaving our au pair without a ride. She hadn't charged her phone and it was dead, so it took her a while to be able to get home. This ended up being a big fight about how she was an adult and could make her own decisions. It abruptly ended when we pointed out we didn't care exactly where she was or what she was doing, we just needed to know which hospitals to call if she didn't ever come home. She actually radically changed her behavior after this and we didn't have any more problems.

  - Don't use the phone for international calls, use Skype or Zoom, or WhatsApp. 
We didn't have a problem, but we knew a family that got hit with a $5000 phone bill because their au pair was spending every minute on the phone with family in Italy.

  - The au pair gets two weeks of vacation, but if we can select one of the weeks then they get an extra week. 
This isn't a hard requirement, but we've never had an au pair turn it down. Our kids stay with grandparents for two weeks each summer, so the au pair gets those two weeks off and it only costs them one week of vacation.

That's the important stuff. It's always easier to make the rules looser, so we start off on what we feel is the strict side and then loosen them up over time, especially as we get to trust them more.

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

#170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 / we…

Great reply, thanks for the detailed information. Quite obviously during this time, having a live in au pair would have been helpful. I would be interested in seeing the specific rules you made, from experience (email is slightly obfuscated in my profile). I wouldn't be able to afford the 21k/yr price tag, even if that is a really good price.

I separated the cost issue so it wasn't lost in the other wall of text.

I use a DCFSA (https://www.fsafeds.com/explore/dcfsa) to pay for it. Au pair expenses are a valid expense for this. Our marginal income tax rate is around 35%, so this helps a lot.

  Without DCFSA:
    Pre-tax Cost:  ~$32,300
    Post-tax Cost:  $21,000

  With DCFSA:
    Pre-tax Cost:   $21,000
    Post-tax Cost: ~$13,650
This is all an estimate of course (like increased insurance or rent on a larger place can't be paid for using a DCFSA), but it makes the point. So I think of the cost as around $13,650 for 45 hours / week, 50 weeks / year, 2250 hours in total. No matter how many kids you have.

If that big chunk is hard to swallow, the agency fees are ~$8000, and most agencies will let you break that up into a payment plan. The au pair is paid $200 each week, so that ~$10,000 is naturally spread out. The remainder is what we estimated our additional costs to be, like food, insurance, etc. and that gets spread out as well.

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