I tried to help teachers. It was considered spam.

No matter how much potential exists, it can’t be realized if a process is rushed. (Image by Katharina N.)

I recently joined a rapidly growing Facebook group related to “pandemic pods” and microschools. As a microschool leader, I thought I could be helpful.

If you haven't heard about the "pandemic pod" concept, it's based on a group of parents bringing a handful of kids together to be led by one adult. Sometimes, the parents themselves plan to take turns leading the group; other times, the group will be led by a babysitter who will be supervising the kids' work in their regular school's online curriculum; and in some groups, a professional educator will be leading the group and perhaps even developing a specialized curriculum.

The pandemic pod concept is controversial for a few reasons that have been discussed widely, but there’s one more that concerns me: It’s potentially taking advantage of teachers.

In many threads in this Facebook group, I saw confused educators trying to determine, in public and on the fly, how to price their services or how many children they can serve. Meanwhile, the parents were working out how to make these teachers into household employees like nannies, which doesn't really make sense for a teacher who would be serving multiple families at once.

Since the purpose of the group is networking, I created a post offering to do a free teleconference where I helped teachers figure out the business side of things. I thought this could be important for the stability of these pods for parents and students. After all, nobody wants their teacher to quit in October when she realizes she's in over her head.

My post was approved by the moderators and quickly gained traction. Within an hour or two, it had close to 100 likes and 40 comments (“Yes, please!”).

I don't know for sure how much attention the post ultimately got, because it was removed by a moderator while I was offline. I was told to post in the "companies" thread, even though I wasn’t representing a company and wasn't selling anything.

I tried a second post, saying, "My post about helping teachers with the business side of things was removed. I scrolled and scrolled and can't find the 'companies' thread, but I'm not a company anyway -- I'm just a microschool leader with expertise to share. So if you'd like to connect, just PM me." That post was rejected.

I posted in the “companies” thread as instructed after I was provided with the link, but my post never received a single like. There’s no way for me to reach the dozens of people who expressed interest in learning how to manage an education-related business. And this worries me, because they are setting themselves up to be taken advantage of.

I can understand why a group wants to keep threads “organized.” And it’s fine for a Facebook group to want to limit commercial posts. However, in a group whose purpose is to connect parents and teachers, many of those connections are, inherently, potential business relationships. A teacher advertising her own services is a de facto company — that is, a commercial business. If she doesn’t understand this clearly, she’s going to be in trouble, and the structure of the group is obfuscating the reality of the situation. This is why I wanted to step in and help.

Many of these teachers are essentially acting like volunteers. I’ve been down that road before. I used to charge for my services arbitrarily without factoring in the actual costs of my work or the value of my service. I considered what someone wanted to pay or what others were charging instead of pricing based on the real needs of my own business.

One teacher was wondering what she should charge when the parents “never signed up for this” and had been planning on public school. But these parents — her prospective clients — are signing up for this, and they remain free to choose her services or not. A small business owner isn’t responsible for adapting their pricing to someone’s circumstances. Sure, they can do it if they want to, but they are not obligated to do so. When they feel like they can’t say no, there’s a problem.

I once met with a group of parents who wanted to use my school building for their own homeschool group. Things started off nice via email. I had two different possibilities for them and quoted them a rate for each. I then had an in-person meeting with three parents, one of whom got increasingly aggressive when she didn’t like my price — a price I had already shared via email. She wanted the lower rate for the bigger space. It was one of the hardest negotiation experiences I have ever had. She used guilt, intimidation, everything, while the other two mothers flanked her silently on my office couch. I just kept repeating my bottom line with a smile. Forty minutes later, they left. I was exhausted, but I had stood my ground. However, I then realized that I was still leaving it up to them to decide what to do next! I sent an email to my contact and told them I wasn’t interested in working with them. Boy, did that feel good.

I know that earlier in my career, I wouldn’t have been able to stand up to this kind of persistence. I would have been steamrolled into doing whatever this group wanted. I would have been easier to manipulate. I might have really needed the opportunity, so I wouldn’t have said no. And then I would have been miserable and unable to see a way out of it. I don’t want to see that happen to these teachers, who are becoming business owners by accident.

To be successful in working outside of the school system, a teacher has to figure out what tuition a child should pay for her services, how many students she is willing to take on, and the scope of services she wishes to offer. She’s got to think ahead to things that could go wrong and plan for them — and in the time of coronavirus, that is no small consideration. The client’s wishes may factor into these decisions, but only insofar as they influence the creation of an offer that’s in alignment with what they are looking for. A specific client’s preferences are only one factor. The teacher may well conclude that they are unable to find a workable model, given the constraints and their own preferences. Alternatively the client may conclude that the rate they’d have to pay to get everything they want is more than they are willing to pay. These outcomes are perfectly reasonable.

Though the “pandemic pod” educational concept has issues, it’s exciting to see such innovative ideas being discussed widely. There are elements of this small group framework — especially an outdoor version — that can be applied to public school settings in the spirit of reducing inequity rather than increasing it. However, the legal and financial implications of this model for independent school groups are not insignificant. Individual teachers will need advice and support in order to be successful in this environment. Hopefully, even with my post gone, they can still find it.