Pod People: Schools to open the year exclusively with distance learning, so South Bay parents search for alternatives
El Segundo resident Amie Schneider (center) tries her best at distance learning last spring. With districts in the South Bay beginning the year in distance learning again, many parents are starting learning pods to provide socialization and extra help for their kids. Photo Susan Robinson wants her daughter to be bilingual, so it was good news when the Redondo Beach resident learned this spring that her five-year-old had been accepted into the dual immersion program at Washington Elementary. The program, which includes kids from both English- and Spanish-speaking families, lasts throughout a child’s time at the school, but because each year builds on the next, students are only accepted at the beginning. “The kindergarten year is, I would say, a foundational year. The outcome would be becoming bilingual. Kindergarten is supposed to be 90 percent in Spanish, and a lot of the learning is through conversation and peer-to-peer interaction,” Robinson said. The past few months have not been good ones for the promise of peer-to-peer interaction. Schools, linked with socialization at least as far back as Plato’s “Republic,” have been closed since March. On July 17, Gov. Gavin Newsom…
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