Our AY 2022-23 pandemic plan

This is a brief overview of the layers of protection that we are applying at Abrome for the 2022-23 academic year. Abrome has been able to remain COVID free for the past three years of pandemic schooling.

The success we have had in protecting each other and local communities from the spread of COVID is something we are very proud of. We were only able to do that thanks to a collective commitment to community care, transparency, and candid and honest communication.

Community care means centering the needs of those who would be most impacted by our decisions and actions, and leveraging our privilege to support them. We must acknowledge three realities about the COVID pandemic (and likely Mpox, too):

1. COVID continues to fall heaviest on BIPOC communities, the immunocompromised, those without access to quality healthcare, essential workers, the unvaccinated, etc. All of our pandemic decisions must center those most impacted. Nothing we do impacts only those at Abrome.

2. All Facilitators and Learners go home to families, friends, and into other communities each day. If we were to spread COVID at Abrome, we’d spread it elsewhere, too.

3. There is no such thing as a harmless single case of COVID. Including cases that are “mild.” Each case has the potential to lead to long-term chronic health problems and disrupt quality of life, seed a superspreader event, and host a mutation that can become a new variant.

To limit the likelihood of infection and spread, we will use a multilayered approach to not bringing COVID into our education community, and not spreading COVID if it does find its way into the community. Please see our pandemic plan for greater detail.

Masking: Everyone will wear KF94s, KN95s, or N95s (or higher filtration masks or respirators) whenever we are indoors, and any time we are close to one another outdoors above the lowest risk level. All snacks and meals must be eaten outdoors.

Physical distancing: As cases rise we will reduce reduce density, cohort, and meet outdoors. Quarantine and isolation lasts 7 and 10 days, respectively, including a test out requirement. Abromies will receive remote support, and Facilitators receive paid sick time off.

Air quality: We will aggressively ventilate the space and monitor ventilation with CO2 monitors (800ppm max). Each room is also equipped with at least one HEPA purifier or Corsi-Rosenthal box, producing in excess of 12 air changes per hour (ACH) in filtration based on air volume.

Testing: Each morning every Learner and Facilitator completes a quick screening questionnaire before, each family submits a pooled household sample for LAMP surveillance testing, and we follow up with diagnostic testing based on results or stated concerns of exposure.

Vaccines: This year we also have a vaccination mandate except in very rare cases of medical necessity. Our definition of fully vaccinated includes being up-to-date on boosters.

Risk levels: We will use our updated COVID risk level system to determine when, where, and how we will gather. The five risk levels have cutoffs based on the average new cases per 100,000 and the test positivity rate, locally.

Gathering guidelines: Risk determines where we gather, how big our cells can be, whether we must mask (always indoors), when we will conduct LAMP testing (whenever in-person), and how close we can be from each other to include when eating (always outdoors).

Some say that we need kids back in schools even without sufficient measures to protect them from COVID infection because of learning loss, socialization, or other racist and classist assumptions. We believe such claims are not only false, they are ethically and morally repugnant.

Here is the Abrome pandemic plan for the coming academic year. Cannot wait to see you all on September 6th.

Covid: three pandemic years in—looking back

Most schools in central Texas reopen this week, and the overwhelming majority of them will have no meaningful COVID protections in place, much less a multilayered approach that would drastically reduce the risk of spread of COVID within their school communities. Needless to say, they will have no meaningful Monkeypox protections in place, either. 

At Abrome, we still have three weeks until the first day of our 2022-2023 academic year, and have yet to put out our finalized pandemic plan for the coming year. We expect to do so in the next ten days, and expect it to be similar to our plan for the past year. Our last academic year wrapped up only five and a half weeks ago, on Friday, July 9th, and we finished our third pandacademic year without a single known case of COVID in the space. The following day I posted a twitter thread that briefly touched upon the multilayered approach we took to stop the spread of the disease. In the hopes of encouraging school leaders, teachers, staff, parents, and students who believe there is nothing they can do to protect each other from COVID in the current political and social environment, I am including the full text of that thread, and where appropriate I expound on what we did and how these practices can be implemented in their schools. I will also address some of the criticisms that many people brought forth. Disclaimer: snark.

Our 2021-22 academic year just ended yesterday.

We just finished our 3rd year without a single case of COVID-19 in the space. That means not a single person was exposed “at school.” Doubly impressive given the transmissibility of the current variants.

How did we do it?

— Abrome (@AbromeEd) July 9, 2022

Our 2021-22 academic year just ended yesterday. 

We just finished our 3rd year without a single case of COVID-19 in the space. That means not a single person was exposed “at school.” Doubly impressive given the transmissibility of the current variants.

How did we do it?

First, we prioritized community care over white, upper middle class, reactionary insecurity. We recognized early on that COVID was falling heaviest on BIPOC communities, the immunocompromised, those without access to quality healthcare, etc. All our decisions centered them. 

[This really bothered a lot of folks. A quick check of those who complained showed they were disproportionately COVID deniers, anti-maskers, and anti-vaxxers. Yes, I know that those terms are politically charged and may be viewed as pejoratives but in this case it is simply a statement of reality. Surprisingly a select group of COVID minimizers, advocates of only vaccinating people, advocates of only mandating masks, and blue check influencers (official accounts with large audiences) glossed over this and later claimed that our practices that centered BIPOC communities somehow harmed Black students because they were not stuck in school. Note: learning loss is not a thing. And even if it was, it would not be a sufficient excuse to risk exposing kids to COVID, or their parens, guardians, or caregivers.]

Second, we acknowledged that nothing we do impacts only those at Abrome. All Facilitators (“teachers”) and young people (“students”) go home to families, friends, and into other communities each day. If we were to spread COVID at Abrome, we’d spread it elsewhere, too. 

[Some OPEN SCHOOLS NOW people (who argue that we just have to get kids back in schools [as if they haven’t been back in schools] and who are overwhelmingly middle class and upper middle class white people) and COVID minimizers argued that kids were more likely to catch it at home than they were at school. True, because at home you are breathing in each other’s air over extended periods of time, without protection measures. And the parents are bringing the disease home most often from work (schools happen to be workplaces for teachers and staff) or other settings where people come together, usually indoors, usually without masking, and usually without other forms of protections—like schools. And it is a foolish argument against preventing spread at school because when a kid brings the disease home from school then everyone in their family becomes at risk of being infected. The disease does not magically not spread when a kid brings it home.]

Third, there is no such thing as a harmless single case of COVID that someone with “a healthy immune system” can overcome. Each case has the potential to seed a superspreader event. Each case has the potential to host a mutation that can become a new variant. 

So we focused on two things.

1) not bringing COVID into our education community.

2) not spreading COVID if it did find its way into the community. 

To not bring it in we started with going remote during periods of very high spread. This was easy in the spring of 2020 when all schools chose to do the same. It got much harder in 2021 & 2022 when society bought into the argument that kids and teachers should accept infection. 

[See screenshot of daily spread calculation instructions.]

We also had each family conduct a daily COVID screening. If someone showed up having not completed it we did it with them in-person before allowing them to enter the space / join the group. 

It worked. During every wave we had some students or staff get infected outside of Abrome, but because of our practices none brought it into the community (which would have then spread out beyond the community). 

[See screenshot of screening checklist. We will be updating the screening for the coming year.]

To not spread it if it snuck into the community we acknowledged that #COVIDisAirborne. We mandated masks whenever indoors. KF94, KN95, N95, or better. Zero indoor “mask breaks.” And folks had to go outdoors to eat.

Outdoors they had to wear masks when close to each other. 

And we went outdoors for the entirety of the 2020-2021 academic year! In the Texas heat! This year we had at least one cell of people outdoors pretty much each day except when we went remote during Delta and Omicron. During very high levels of spread, everyone went outdoors. 

[One OPEN SCHOOLS NOW and blue check influencer accused us of being remote most of the time, while wealthy schools “used their resources to keep kids safer in person.” Well, we are not a wealthy school, so we didn’t have those resources (assuming they meant money), and they conveniently glossed over the fact that we were not largely remote.]

We also filtered our indoor air. Each room was equipped with HEPA filtration systems or Corsi-Rosenthal boxes, each with a CADR that would deliver at least 6 ACH per room based on room volume, and 8 ACH in bathrooms. That also required calculating the volume of each room. See, maybe you will use need to know that math in the future!

“Sure, but you can only do that because you’re a well-funded private school!!”

Wrong. We are not a rich private school. Our sliding scale tuition give us only 40% of the tuition per student that the local public schools receive. We just prioritize community care! 

[And that tweet was prescient as that same OPEN SCHOOLS NOW and blue check influencer attacked our plan because "MAKING ACTUAL SCHOOLS SAFER REQUIRES INVESTMENT” while completely ignoring that we did on the cheap what schools with an annual budgets that ran into the tens or hundreds of millions of dollars refused to do anything to clean their air.] 

On top of filtering the air we ventilated the indoor space. We opened windows and created lots of cross flow. We used CO2 monitors as a proxy measure for ventilation. When the readings went above 650 we cranked the AC and opened the windows further, if it hit 800 we vacated. 

We implemented capacity limits indoors, for each room and for the total number who could be indoors at any given time.

We also broke our community up into smaller and smaller groups/cells as cases rose. And pushed them outdoors. It is safer outdoors. 

If someone would have inadvertently come into the space / group infected, the smaller cells limited the pool of people who could be exposed.

No one came in infected (as much luck as it was preventative policies) but even if they did the number they could infect was capped. 

[Some critics pointed out that we were lucky and that we could not attribute no one bringing COVID into Abrome or spreading it within the community to our practices. As if we did not acknowledge that luck most certainly played a part. But luck does often favor those who prepare.]

When the CDC catered to politicians and corporations and said that local spread should not be the driver of how we choose to meet, we ignored them. When the CDC said that we could drastically shorten quarantine and isolation periods, or not require testing out, we ignored them. 

[Sorry for also ignoring you, the OPEN SCHOOLS NOW blue check influencers who insist upon a one-size fits all solution that requires multi-billions of dollars of investment from the same government that is actively trying to convince us that we should just live with COVID.] 

Next year we will also have a vaccine mandate except in very rare cases of medical necessity (everyone in our community is vaccinated already). 

[This only got push back from anti-vaxxers. The vaccinate only crowd only took issue with everything else we wrote.]

The pandemic has really tested our community. Centering community care has put a big dent in our enrollment. But we understand our obligations toward our families, our community, and our society. 

And that was the thread.

The COVID minimizers, OPEN SCHOOLS NOW people, and blue check influencers also came out in force to attack us for being too small to take seriously.  Side note, the COVID minimizers, the vaccinate-only, the masking-only, and blue check influencers do seem to be causing much more harm than the COVID deniers these days. This was our response to them:

So the fact that we are a very small education community seems to really gall some people, convincing them to shout that our approach to Covid is irrelevant because of our size. Because if we don't have at least 100 enrolled there is nothing to learn from our efforts.

We are a Self-Directed Education community that rejects the practices and structures of schooling and instead focus on centering community care and honoring the autonomy of young people. We will never become a large school because we are not what most parents want. 👍

We consider ourselves to be a liberation project, acting prefiguratively to serve as a model for others to learn from and to replicate if it speaks to them. We strive to be an anti-oppressive space, and one of "a million experiments." Let those experiments propagate!

It is that mindset that allows us to center community care over white, upper middle class, reactionary insecurity. It is precisely because we are not a conventional school that we were able to focus on limiting the risk of exposure and spread through layered mitigations.

Some say that what we do cannot work for everyone because we go outdoors and then go remote when there is uncontrolled community spread. Or because we start at 10a. Or because we charge tuition.

True.

We cannot be all things to all people. We don't try to be.

We are one experiment. Ideally there would be many schools taking Covid seriously so that there were many more options for families. Even amongst district public schools. But we don't get public funding, so blaming us for not being free and available 24/7 is weird.

They angrily argue that what we do cannot be scaled up to all public school systems.

Yes. And no.

Yes, public schools, just like conventional private schools, serve power and the status quo. Even where communities overwhelmingly demand safer schools, most schools cannot even mandate masking. Our approach cannot be easily scaled up because it doesn't serve power.

But no, what we do can be scaled up to all schools because the measures are readily accessible to all who have the courage to push back against politicians and corporations, even if they have to do so in a renegade fashion. Investment is not the problem, priorities are.

The most closeminded position of all is that because of our small size that nothing we do is relevant, or somehow scaling up is not possible. What do people think schools are? Are they not large buildings, that are broken down into grades and classrooms?

Everything we do could be scaled. Mandated masking, monitoring air quality, ventilation, CR boxes or HEPA filters in classrooms, cohorting, daily screenings, quarantines & isolation that is not truncated and requires a test out, going outdoors, going remote.

Are they really arguing that layered mitigation measures are not feasible? Or are they saying that schools with tens or hundreds of millions of dollars in annual budgets cannot afford it? Or are they just telling you to get vaccinated and look away?

We'll still be here.

Cover image by Arek Socha from Pixabay

Your local school is failing your community by not being remote

It is 10:45 a.m. on Monday, January 24th, and the Abrome Facilitators and Learners just finished our first meeting of the week. Yes, unlike (presumably) all the schools in Central Texas, we are remote and have been since winter break. Well, sort of for all the schools in Central Texas. I’ll get back to that.

Our first day back from the break was scheduled for January 3rd, but recognizing that cases were quickly rising, we postponed our start date by a week to better assess the situation and to avoid bringing Learners back for one day before having to go remote. We told families that the lost week would be made up for by reducing spring break from two weeks to one. As expected, the numbers released by Austin Public Health on January 3rd pushed us into our risk level 5, meaning we would be remote for a while (assuming that institutions would not take necessary steps to help reduce the spread of Covid-19, locally).

Our remote looks quite different from what it looks like for most schools. Our remote is about holding space and maintaining connection with the Learners, knowing we will eventually get to come back together. During remote we host our daily morning meetings and afternoon roundups, and we host weekly Set-the-Week, Check-in, and Change-up meetings. We try to schedule 1:1 meetings with each Learner each week, with additional meetings for those who want it. And we schedule a variety of offerings that might be of interest to Learners, and support Learners who want to host their own offerings. We encourage Learners to attend Abrome meetings and offerings if it works for them, and to not attend if it does not. We have the flexibility to do so because we are a Self-Directed Education community, meaning we do not burden young people with a forced, narrow academic curriculum during pandemic times, just as we did not during pre-pandemic times. Nonetheless, remote is still an exhausting experience for our Facilitators, and a less than remarkable experience for most of the Abrome Learners. The Learners want to be together playing, creating, conversing, and learning together; and they want to be able to do it emergently, instead of according to an online schedule in a virtual space where attendance can be sporadic.

Conventional public and private schools cannot allow Learners to choose a path that works best for them during remote. Those schools rely on compulsory attendance, so the freedom to participate or not is anathema to them. But, because they are in the business of delivering academic curriculum to captive cohorts of students, they can quickly shift their product to remote delivery, as they had done in the spring of 2020. They could even do so relatively competently, assuming the schools are willing to support the teachers with the time and resources to do so. I am not saying going remote would be easy for them. Being remote is an inconvenience to the schools, and they would need to deal with irate parents demanding that their kids be in school, but the essential function of schooling remains the same. For the teachers, remote schooling is still exhausting. And for the students, remote schooling is certainly unremarkable.

But no matter how inconvenient or how poor the quality of remote schooling can be, no schools should be meeting in-person right now during this most infectious wave of the pandemic. Because schools are sites of transmission (including for superspreader events) every school had a social responsibility to their local community to go remote as soon as we entered into a period of uncontrolled community transmission of the disease, meaning every school should have been remote since the winter break. And every school that failed to do so (which I believe is every school, locally) now has a social responsibility to immediately go remote. Unfortunately, there are not many people in Central Texas, and virtually zero institutions, who agree that.

Many argue that because infections due to Omicron are “mild” relative to Delta infections that we should continue sending kids to school. Problem is, “mild” can still cause serious illness and death. In fact, daily deaths are higher now, nationally, than they were during the Delta wave, because of the extremely high number of infections. It also ignores that even “mild” illness can lead to long Covid and potentially very serious long-term medical conditions or disability that will shorten or greatly reduce the quality of life of millions of people.

Others say schools should be open because kids are unlikely to die from Covid-19. They’re also unlikely to die from a drunk driving accident, but few would advocate putting them in the car with a drunk driver. Further, like for adults, the consequences of infection are not a simple binary of live or die. Kids who get infected can still suffer greatly during the initial infection, they can suffer from long Covid, and an unknown number may develop serious health conditions that they will need to live with for years or decades into the future.

But even if they want to roll the dice on their children’s health, or other people’s children’s health, those who demand that schools stay open erase from the conversation all the adults who work in schools. Should teachers and staff sacrifice disability or death just so kids can go to school? The reopen schools crowd eagerly ignores the existence of the adults in schools each time they say “the kids will be fine if they get infected.”

And even if the lives of the school teachers and staff do not matter (to the open schools now crowd), each infection that is facilitated by in-person schooling leaves the facility at the end of the day and goes into the broader community. Each one of those infections can infect household and family members (kids have parents and guardians, too), they can seed superspreader events, and they can be the source of a mutation that creates a new variant.

And because of the aggressive spread of this disease, with record numbers of infections, even though it is “mild” compared to Delta, it is straining the capacity of the medical system, and it is crushing the spirits of medical workers who have been struggling to save lives for the past two years, largely without the support of the rest of society. This means that even if the “only people” who die from Covid-19 are those who “refuse to get vaccinated” or “had underlying conditions,” people are going to indirectly die from medical care they cannot get for other conditions because of the inability of the medical system to deal with the surge. By the way, those who refuse to get vaccinated and those with underlying conditions shouldn’t be dying from a disease that we can prevent from spreading.

There is simply no ethical medical or social justification for schools to be open right now. Kids are not safer at schools. Kids’ mental health is far more impacted by being surrounded by mass disability and death, and by adults and institutions who refuse to protect them. And as stated before, kids are also not the only people in schools, and schools are not separate from the broader community. Perhaps the most compelling unethical justification that can be made for schools to be open right now is that businesses need schools open so that their workers do not have to stay home with their kids during working hours. If we assume that keeping the wheels of capitalism turning is more important than the health of society, I guess we can accept the contribution schools are making to mass disability and death.

But, other than the ethical piece, there is another big problem with that argument. When infection becomes too widespread, the wheels of capitalism will begin to slow down. When people are seeing large numbers of their friends, family, and acquaintances getting infected, and some suffering greatly from it, many of them are going to modify their behavior. That modification may include staying home whether or not businesses or schools like it. It may lead to them dropping out of the workforce, or unenrolling from covid petri dish schools. It may lead to them withdrawing from engaging in the consumerism that the economy is built upon. And even if enough people are willing to risk infection, to work through infection and the lingering effects of infection, and are willing to head out into public while infected (as is now encouraged by business and the government), wide-scale illness will eventually leave businesses and schools without enough employees and customers to operate.

And we may be on the cusp of that right now. We were greatly saddened that schools did not preemptively go remote at the end of the winter break, when this wave was upon us. We had hoped that the schools would take their responsibility to their local communities seriously. Instead, they brought students, teachers, and staff together and contributed to the spread of the disease. Yes, public schools have the Governor to deal with; and they must deal with business interests, politicians, and parents who demand schools stay open; and with grifters who seek to profit from promoting the most selfish aspects of our nature; and they need to concern themselves with seat time for the sake of revenue. And yes, private schools also have to deal with much of the same else enrollment may plummet when families pull their kids from school because they don’t want to pay full tuition for remote schooling. But none of those pressures justify in-person schooling.

As of today, it looks like some schools in Central Texas are finally going remote or closing, at least for days at a time. But they are not doing it to stop the spread. They are doing it because they don’t have the ability to keep schools open because too many teachers and staff are unable to work because they’ve been infected or exposed (or disabled or killed). The schools should have gone remote during this most infectious wave of the pandemic before exposing the people they are supposed to care about and serve to the disease within the walls of the schoolhouse. The least they can do now is to go remote to help cut off routes of transmission within the schools, and into the community, so that we can expedite the end of this wave.

——

Cover photo by MChe Lee on Unsplash

A remote start to AY 2021-22

Today is the first day of the 2021-22 academic year at Abrome.

Due to uncontrolled community spread of Covid-19 in Central Texas, we will start our year fully remote. Given the elevated number of cases at this time, bringing people together in-person poses too great a risk of exposing Learners and Facilitators to the disease, which they could then take home and into the broader community. By refusing to 'return to normal’ we inconvenience ourselves to protect each other, particularly those who are most vulnerable to the disease.

At Abrome we will continue to center the needs of those most impacted by the pandemic in our approach to the year, and we call on all education communities to do the same. If we as a society rallied in support of one another and engaged in reasonable safety practices, cases would plummet and we could enjoy being together while also having the peace of mind that comes with knowing that we are not needlessly endangering the welfare of others.

It is not too late for education communities to choose an approach that prioritizes public health. We encourage all communities to adapt, copy, or steal our pandemic plan.

First day of school for local kids (not at Abrome)

Today tens of thousands of students in Central Texas will be returning to school, joining the scores of thousands who returned to school yesterday.

While there is palpable excitement for many students who want to be around large groups of peers again, many other students feel like hostages, knowing full well that they are entering into buildings where their safety is not being taken seriously. This latter group understand that bringing large amounts of people together indoors for hours at a time greatly increases the risk of spread, even with masks. They understand that because their school populations are majority unvaccinated that the risk is amplified, and that some of them, their peers, or the teachers and staff are going to get seriously ill or die. They understand that people who get infected are going to bring the disease home to their families and their local neighborhoods. Yet they have been told they have no choice—schools will not push back the reopening dates, schools will not go remote, many schools won’t even enforce masking requirements. They are told that they must risk their safety and the safety of their community because the schooling machine requires their participation to operate. Some of them will recognize that they do not have participate. Some teachers and staff members will realize the same.

Solidarity to all the students, teachers, and staff who refuse to participate in indoor schooling at this time.

Our values shape our pandemic response

Abrome is an education option for young people and a liberation project. We believe in youth liberation and in the liberation of all peoples, and that our liberation is bound up together. In order to help co-create a better world, we must actively work against the many forms of injustice that exist within our society, to include the oppression of young people. Abrome is a safe space for young people to practice freedom in a community that values consent, practices consensus, and centers the needs of those most impacted by our decisions and actions. 

The wellbeing of the young people at Abrome is a precondition—we will not come together in-person if it puts Abrome Learners needlessly at risk. While we recognize that social interaction, particularly in Self-Directed Education settings, is greatly preferred over remote ones, we reject the privileged narrative that “school closures harm children.” That narrative ignores the many ways in which schooling causes harm to so many children. And so-called learning loss or lack of socialization does not hurt a young person nearly as much as losing someone in their family, household, or community to Covid-19, much less knowing that they were the source of infection. As of July 2021, the children who were hurt the most during the pandemic were the 119,000 who lost a primary caregiver to Covid-19, or the more than 140,000 who experienced the death of a primary or secondary caregiver, defined as co-residing grandparents or kin. Though children remain largely “unlikely to die from Covid-19,” death is not the only bad outcome. Infected adolescents and children continue to be hospitalized, admitted to the ICU, and intubated. They may also develop multi-system inflammatory syndrome or myocarditis. And many will suffer from Long Covid symptoms that can last for months, maybe even years, after they recover from Covid-19. Further, while many vaccinated adults have chosen to “return to normal” because they are largely immune to the worst outcomes of the disease, none of the young people under age 12 are eligible for vaccination, and some age 12 and up are unable to get vaccinated for various reasons. Ignoring the welfare of children should not be normal.

What we choose to do at Abrome does not stay within our immediate community. We are all interconnected. Even if we could ensure that none of the members of the Abrome community would be seriously affected by Covid-19, we would still view it as our responsibility to not carelessly risk spreading the disease to others. The elderly and those with underlying medical conditions are at the greatest risk of serious illness or death from Covid-19, and they have borne the brunt of the pandemic. Other groups that have been disproportionately affected include Hispanic, Black, and Indigenous people; low income people; and people in congregate settings (e.g., long-term care facilities, prisons, shelters, meat processing facilities). Those who fall into more than one of the aforementioned groups are particularly vulnerable. These groups, and other under-resourced, marginalized, and oppressed groups have also disproportionately suffered in terms of financial security and mental health during the pandemic. We cannot in good conscience enter into this new academic year without continuing to make the welfare of the most impacted central to our pandemic response.

At Abrome we often say that we are concerned about two worlds. There is the world that we live in, that we need to learn how to navigate. And there is the world that we want to live in, and we choose to live prefiguratively in order to help bring that world into being. The world we live in is eager to “return to normal,” letting those most at risk suffer the consequences. The world we want to live in is not risk free, but it rejects the notion of transferring risk from those with resources and power to those without. We acknowledge that each additional Covid-19 infection can lead to more infections, and each new infection has the potential to seed a superspreader event or a new variant of the virus. By greatly reducing the likelihood of infection or spread of the disease at Abrome, we will help minimize the harm to those in our communities and outside of them, and we will provide an example to others of what community care can look like. 

Days 130, 131, 132 of AY20-21: a day and two remotes

As we entered into the latter half of the middle week of cycle 9 of the pandacademic year we were uncertain as to how much time we would be able to spend with the Learners given pandemic fatigue, thunderstorms, and struggle with the heat and the humidity. When I showed up on April 28th I found that we again had a smaller than decent sized crew, with only three Learners present, so I went back to Abrome to focus on getting more Learners enrolled. For the Learners who did show up in my cell, Facilitator Lauren focused on giving them lots of individualized attention and play.

In addition to Facilitator Lauren, the smaller crew consisted of a 16-year-old, 8-year-old, and a 6-year-old. The younger Learners often spend a lot of time with each other, but they don’t spend much time with the teens, but they all tend to appreciate being in each other’s orbits. On this day they all played monarchs and viceroys (the insects, not the authoritarians), and cougar stalks deer. Perhaps having fewer teen Learners present made it easier for the 16-year-old to join in, although we have pulled teens into these games before.

In addition to the games was a great appreciation for local animals. For example, there was much admiration for the great blue heron who was hanging out near the cell, and of another snake that was situated at the base of a cypress tree. There was less joy at seeing two baby copperheads slithering across the trail under feet as the crew was walking toward the lake! That gave them all an opportunity to talk about safety and being mindful of wear we step.

At the lake the adolescent Learner eagerly jumped at the opportunity to spend time on the paddle board, where he would spend much of the day enjoying the tranquility of sitting on the surface of the lake.

But the other Learners also were sure to get their turns on the boat as well. As Facilitator Lauren and the 8-year-old floated up a stream they watched a snake slowly lower itself into the water and swim away, and they saw the blue heron snatch a fish out of the water and eat it! During the paddle board adventure the younger Learner noticed a can that was thrown (or dropped) in the water, so she asked to paddle over to it, where she picked it out of the water and then dropped it off in the trash when she returned to shore. What a wonderful way to help take care of the public spaces that we are able to frequent!

In addition to appreciating the fauna the Learners also appreciated the flora of Central Texas on the beautiful day. One of the Learners found that in addition to tasting delicious that mulberries serve as an excellent hair dye, while another Learner was fascinated by the gradient of colors of a blade of grass going from a deep green to a near white.

When everyone was finished with their time on the paddle board, and as Facilitator Lauren was at the bathroom, the teen Learner began to pack it up. When Facilitator Lauren returned she thanked him for packing it up. The 8-year-old Learner then remarked, “that was really helpful.”

As the day came to a close the cell gathered around and played a variety of quizzes together, such as identifying the names of video games or NASA missions. For the afternoon roundup they each shared one experience during that day that was uncomfortable, one that was joyful, and one that was inspiring. They then walked back to the pickup spot where the Learners got into their vehicles to go home. As the youngest one was getting into his car he turned to his mom and asked if he was “helpful.” They’re always watching, and they’re always listening.

At the other cell the Learners spent most of their day climbing around rock faces, throwing dirt on each other, playing games on a Learner’s phone, and just enjoying the scenery. It was a nice way to spend time together on what would turn out to be our last in-person day of the week.

Thursday weather

Morning meeting 29th

Then the thunderstorms rolled in. Or at least the forecast of thunderstorms which required us to cancel in-person meetups on Thursday. I don’t know if I’ve said it clearly enough, but I cannot stand remote days. They’re awful. I mean, they’re better than bringing people together during a pandemic where a single new infection can be devastating as it has the potential to lead to a super spreader event or a new mutation, but now that we are in an era where most people think that the pandemic is over the ideal is to be together as much as possible (read sarcasm). But lightning strikes are taken more seriously by most than a pandemic, so remote it (still) is.

Remote days don’t bring out the most joy and excitement in the Learners, and on this day it brought out only three Learners for the morning meeting. But I was able to engage those who did show up with some good prompts, in my opinion. First we discussed, “what social or economic issue do you think will have the biggest impact on your life?” Other than one young Learner who said he did not know (yet), the issues that we felt would have the biggest impact were climate change, pollution, a living wage, institutionalized violence, and inequality. Then we each talked about what we could do about it: modeling an ethical relationship with the natural world and supporting organizations that reconnect people ith nature, recycling (with a follow-on discussion of what recycling does and does not do), create structures to provide people with services for their needs, building relationships to address it as a movement, and no answer because the thought of inequality gave her a headache.

While we hold space for Learners by providing offerings or attending offerings, the idea of more Zoom or Discord meetups has not moved many Learners to show up for individual offerings. But on this day I did have a ‘rest of the year planning session’ offering which brought the three oldest Learners who were eager to share how we might be able to shift some of our pandemic measures.

Rest of the year planning session

Friday weather

Friday, unfortunately, was yet another inclement weather day as every hour but one carried the risk of thunderstorms. If only we had a huge campus with large indoor areas to move into during brief thunderstorms. But alas, those facilities are only available to public conventional schools and select private schools that feed off of a schooled society’s fears that without forcing kids to participate in a k-12 curriculum that the kids will end up as the big losers of a society that is predicated on most people being labeled as failures. Hmmmm…

The first thing I focused on on Friday was writing a blog post about some pretty politically charged school board races in the area that probably gives us a peek into what the 2022 midterm elections might look like. It took me a fair chunk of the day, but with the election upon us I felt it was important to share the concerns a Self-Directed Education community (whose members have shunned conventional schooling because public and private conventional schools do not meet their needs) had on public school board candidates who centered their campaigns on bigotry, exclusion, and harm.

Friday afternoon roundup

With Facilitators Ariel and Lauren much more comfortable with their roles as Facilitators I now have the luxury of stepping away from the every day Facilitation at times to focus on other necessary activities, and it is greatly appreciated. The turnout for the morning meeting was really strong, and after the meeting the Facilitators just hung out and chatted with each other on Zoom. As always with remote days, there was little engagement in the meat of the day as most of the Learners went off in multiple directions (virtual or not), although Facilitator Ariel and a teen Learner did find time for some gaming. We ended the day with a four-Learner afternoon roundup and lots of hopes that we could spend much more time in-person the next week.

Days 126 & 127 of AY20-21: let's check in on the other cell

The 22nd and 23rd of April were days 126 and 127 of the pandacademic year. On the 22nd I was away from the in-person Abrome meetup as I was focused on administrative work, and on the 23rd I had planned to be in-person but we were forced to go remote due to thunderstorms. I will continue to combine days for my ‘daily’ updates when I am away from my cell, or when inclement weather hits (and this is thunderstorm season). In this case, both of the days fit that bill.

My day away from the cell was a good one. I caught up on a lot of overdue administrative issues, connected with the guardian of a recently enrolled Learner, and spoke to some families who are looking into a possible Abrome enrollment for their children.

In my absence, at my cell, there was lots of laughter shared between Facilitator Lauren and two of the adolescent Learners. They chose to lay down on the dock as if they were going to sleep while eagerly engaging in conversation with all. In their disagreements with another adolescent over what peppermints really are, they talked about the possibility of playing tag games the next day.

Facilitator Lauren also spent a lot of time with a younger Learner. They walked around various parts of the park looking at plants. They ate some ripe mulberries and some intense wild onions, and had a cockel burr battle. They also found another bouquet of flowers thrown in the bushes. I guess someone had a photo shoot in nature because it is so beautiful out here, and then they just toss what they don’t want onto the ground. At least flowers will fairly quickly decompose. Facilitator Lauren also played some racing games with the youngest Learner, going slow, forward, and backward.

At the other cell, Facilitator Ariel and the other Learners were confronted with a large vulture at the entrance to the greenbelt where they tried to enter. The vulture was menacing, for sure, but the group did not know if it would be unwise or unsafe to try to skirt around it. Fortunately they had computers in their pockets so they pulled them out and did some quick searches. Turns out that vultures are completely harmless and will happily step aside if you try to pass them. In this instance, it actually run down the trail away from the group as they tried to enter the greenbelt.

In the park, an adolescent Learner chose to take the other Learners back to the waterfall that he and Facilitator Ariel stumbled upon the day before. After admiring the tiny waterfall, they continued to explore this region of the greenbelt. During the exploration they found a cliff with some wonderful views. They stopped to admire the view, and one of the Learners chose to test her nerves by finding a large rock to perch upon overlooking the valley.

It was a cold day, and everyone but one showed up better prepared for the weather. Recognizing the ways in which they were not prepared for the day, they decided that it was the right time to build a shelter. After the crew navigated back down to the riverbed, the Learner began collecting logs and branches to construct the shelter, and soon the other Learners joined in. It turned into more a work of art than a shelter, but the weather had improved so the utility of the shelter was no longer a priority. They all looked upon their work and were satisfied. Before they parted ways at the end of the day, they found a bouquet of flowers. What are the chances that two different cells ten miles apart would both find a bouquet of flowers?

Every day by 7:00 a.m. we make our call on whether it will be a late drop-off, early pick-up, or a cancelled in-person day due to inclement weather. On this day, with thunderstorms scheduled for each our of our 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. day, it was an easy call to go remote.

Remote days continue to not be great, especially on unplanned inclement weather remote days. We only had four Learners show up for the morning meeting and the Check-in and Change-up, but that was enough for a quorum. We don’t have a formal quorum number but any fewer Learners would have meant kicking the Check-in and Change-up to the following Monday.

One of the Learners showed up late while Facilitator Lauren was facilitating the morning meeting, and another Learner typed the prompts into the chat. It was a practice we had months ago, but it was fabulous to see Learners continuing to honor those practices. It’s how we co-create culture. The Check-in and Change-up was a long one. The longest one we’ve had in months. But it was a really good one, with four awarenesses being added to our blank Community Awareness Board (since it was our first Friday of the cycle). One of the newer Learners in the community who had proposed an awareness sent me a private message in the chat asking if he could leave after we came up with practices for his awareness. I asked him to stick it out because it would not feel good to me for him to leave without supporting everyone else they way they supported him. He chose to stick it out, which continues to demonstrate some pretty big leaps and bounds he has been making in terms of his willingness to consider how his actions might impact others. We came up with some really good practices to work with this cycle, and I felt really great about the meeting. No one showed up to the offerings, and only three Learners dropped in on the afternoon roundup, but that’s the way it goes with remote days.

Day 124 of AY20-21: a tale of two cells

Tuesday, April 20th was the second day of cycle nine and my first remote day. With both Facilitators Ariel and Lauren thriving as Facilitators I am taking a step back twice a week to focus on supporting prospective families and on tying up some loose ends administratively. Even though I am not going to be physically present twice a week, I planned to be in touch with Facilitator Lauren and available if she needed my support.

Day two was a beautiful, gorgeous day and the Learners showed up in really good moods. There positive moods helped lead into effortless and fun activities and discovery to include picking mulberries that are not quite ripe yet. Also, one of the Learners decided to showcase his beatbox skills while the other showed us some pretty classic dance moves. If they were born thirty years earlier they might have been child stars!

Mulberries!

The day was a great one for moving around, and two of the adolescent Learners came to Abrome with intentions to workout. One of the Learners went on a job, and another Learner led a workout that Facilitator Lauren participated in. It was a pretty intense workout, and the Learner said he plans to do the workout four times per week! One of the younger Learners watched the workout, but insisted that he was uninterested in participating in it. After the workout was over, the Learner walked away from the group to be by himself further down the shoreline. He was later seen doing his own pushups!

In addition to working out, there was also plenty of water drinking. Facilitator Lauren helped facilitate the drinking with a game of ‘never have I ever,’ and she also handed out some electrolyte packets for the Learners to put in their water bottles. The drinking game went so well that a younger Learner who has never been comfortable going to the bathroom at Abrome decided to nature pee twice. A pretty monumental step forward.

Although no one really got in water deeper than their ankles, there was a lot of time spent next to the water. One of the coolest observations of the day was seeing a water snake just floating on the surface of the lake. The Learners have largely moved on from being afraid of snakes to being aware of them, which is wonderful all around.

Two of the Learners stayed on the dock of the lake while three younger Learners walked to a waterfall where there was much more shade as they found it getting hot at the lake. And although few people found their way into the water on this day, all of them committed to getting into the water on Wednesday.

The snake was not the only animal that we appreciated on this day. There was a fuzzy caterpillar that we came across that looked like it could be menacing. One of the Learners offered Facilitator Lauren ten dollars to touch it, but she passed on the offer. But thanks, anyway!

Exhausted

The day was exhilarating but exhausting, and the Learners left quite content with the ways in which they chose to spend their day.

It was a slow day for the other cell, and a good one for reading. An adolescent read 200 pages of her book, and Facilitator Ariel finished the second of three long essays in Usual Cruelty. Another Learner who said he was not into reading books had a nice conversation with Facilitator Ariel, and it turns out there are some books that he likes. Facilitator Ariel then let the learner borrow his copy of The Sandman by Neil Gaiman. When the Learner was finished with the book he took a nap. The other Learner took out a knife and carved out some eating utensils for lunch.

The other cell is also a small one, but on this day they got word that a Learner who has been out since the winter Covid-19 wave may be coming back this week, as he got his second vaccination shot! As of day 124 of the pandacademic year we have four Facilitators fully vaccinated, and four Learners at least partially vaccinated!

Days 121 & 122 of AY20-21: two virtual days

I said I was going to write a blog post for every day this year. I am modifying that a bit. I’m going to combine days 121 and 122 of the pandacademic year, the two remote days that were tacked onto the tail end of cycle 8. I’m doing so in part because the remote days have been low touch, low turnout, and low engagement; and in part because I am really behind on blog posts for the year (I am writing this on day 135 of the pandacademic year!).

We scheduled in 14 remote days this year so that we could be together as many days as possible both in-person and in total. These 14 remote days allowed us to have at least a nine day observation period between cycles for those meeting in-person, which greatly limited the risk of a single person putting multiple cells at risk of Covid-19. We have been fortunate that our community has taken the pandemic seriously by masking up and not congregating indoors with others from outside their household or dedicated pod, quarantining if they were not able to adhere to our community practices, and that our community largely supports Covid-19 vaccines. In fact, at least one Learner and one guardian got their first shot over the weekend before day 121, while the other was told he was too young (it was a Moderna batch).

We have had mixed results in terms of Learners showing up for online meetings during the pandemic. We were pretty thrilled to get ten Learners to show up for the morning meeting on Monday. For the morning meeting the game shifting asked only that people sit, stand, or dance during the meeting. Although most Learners had their video cameras turned off, one of the younger Learners broke into dance which made us all smile (even those off camera.

Remote again. Woo hoo.

Most of the folks on the morning call shared how they could be the type of friend they wish they had: listen to people, be there in the hard times, by not interrupting people, be more available, do my stretches (no clue what that means), being honest, challenging people without hurting them, being there for others, be nice.

I then told everyone that one of the shadowers from the prior week would be enrolling for cycle 9. This was a cause for celebration and relief. Each additional person in a Self-Directed Education community adds far more to the community than plus one. This is because each person brings their own unique interests, skills, thoughts, and life experiences that everyone else can benefit from. So going from 10 Learners to 11 would not increase one time connection opportunities between Learners by 9% (1/11), but it would increase it by 11 times (10! vs 11!). I will probably write a future blog post to explain that more clearly. Nonetheless, it is substantial. The reason it is a relief is because we were not at our best the prior week, and we really came up short in welcoming in the new Learners. So to know that one of the shadowers was confident enough of his place in the community was a really big deal.

Speaking of the difficult week, I had planned calls with the four Learners I called out on Friday. On Monday, I had a really great call with the first of the four Learners. We talked about how the Learners stuck to themselves and did not go out of their way to interact with the shadowers, particularly on Thursday. This Learner said, “I was kind of [stuck] in the middle of leaving my comfort zone or staying in my comfort zone.” It was a helpful conversation as it allowed me to better understand the motivation of the Learner, and it helped the Learner better empathize with the experiences of a shadower.

Unfortunately, as is now the norm for our remote days, none of the Learners came to the four offerings that were set up for the day. But that’s okay, we are just holding space for the Learners if they need it, and we found plenty of time to be with each other.

The next day nine Learners showed up for the morning meeting, one less than Monday but still a strong enough showing that it made those who show up appreciate their community. For the morning prompt we each shared a way nature has affected our daily life lately: allergies, wifi doesn’t work in nature, joy from watching two birds build a nest outside their window, feeling crappy outside because of allergies, it is so hot I can’t wear my hoodie, enjoying walks in the neighborhood and noticing how protective deer are of their fawns, I biked this morning and waived hi to so many people because it was so beautiful out, allergies are causing a really dry cough, allergies and stuff, allergies, the sun is helping me produce vitamin D, allergies. Are the allergies really that bad, or are the Learners just too comfortable indoors?

On Tuesday we told the Learners what the cell composition were going to be for cycle 9, and no one seemed to take offense, which was nice. Unfortunately, at least two Learners were planning to be entirely remote, and that stinks, but we cannot wait until they can show up in person again (probably next fall).

On this day the Facilitators again provided a variety of offerings that the Learners did not take advantage of, but Facilitator Ariel and I showed up for an Among Us offering that was hosted by one of the Learners. It was really fun and even though I was tired and anxious to get work done I’m glad I made time to connect with the Learner (and kill and be killed by him).

On Tuesday I also met with the other three Learners to discuss the challenges we had the earlier week. The Learners shared some good ideas on how they can better support others, but I was interested in the general belief that if they can find nothing in common with someone then maybe they have nothing to talk about. I interrogated that idea a bit, helping the Learners to recognize that there is a world of possible shared interests that cannot possibly be explored during an initial introduction. I also questioned whether it made sense to spend less effort to welcome in those who seem the most different (e.g., less shared interests), and how that could play out in terms of supporting those who are already in the minority in society. For example, if we have no Black, trans, or undocumented immigrant Learners, would it not be more difficult to build quick rapport with them, but would that not also be all the more reason to try to make them feel welcome? After all, American society does not have a great record of welcoming in and supporting historically marginalized people, and we certainly have no interest of replicating the harshness of American society at Abrome.

Facilitator Ariel also talked to the Learners about last week. One of the Learners told him that he had a fear of letting people in because of his earlier life experiences. Facilitator Ariel shared that he had the same fears, and expounded upon that to talk about his fears as a Black man in the south. He explained how it had been a hard two days since the Daunte Wright killing (by police in Minnesota), and they cried with each other. Later, Facilitator Ariel told the Learner that we Facilitators believe in them, and our collective ability to grow. They then talked about what they could do in the future to better welcome people in.