Hatcher was preparing to homeschool her daughter and trying to get approval to open an in-home child care center when it occurred to her that her lousy circumstances might be hiding an opportunity. Before COVID-19, she had been working to launch a nonprofit that would mentor Black girls involved with the criminal justice system or at risk of ending up there.
The single parent of two, she couldn’t supervise her 2-year-old, help her 10-year-old with distance learning and return to her in-person job as a customer service representative.
Using a $10,000 grant from the National Parents Union, Hatcher is in the process of opening her Righteous Voice Mentoring pod. The girls under her tutelage will stay enrolled in the Madison Metropolitan School District, but with additions such as membership in the national Black Girl Book Club, encounters with strong Black women in their community and other activities to promote the development of healthy identities.
Why not start a learning pod in her Wisconsin home? Other low-income parents could keep their jobs while she oversaw remote learning for six girls in grades 4 through 8 — with a hefty dose of the Black girl magic she had in mind for her nonprofit.
“A place where they can come and do their learning and get a little, a bit more about what it means to be a Black girl,” Hatcher explains. “I’m bringing a little of my mentoring into it.”
In contrast, the parents union grantees all seek in some way to close persistent gaps unaddressed by traditional schools, with themes ranging from affirming families’ race and heritage to providing specific curriculum for a very small number of students with similar needs.
Hatcher’s is one of 37 efforts recently funded by the parents union, with the goal of enabling families to create equitable versions of the pandemic pods that have occupied headlines since schools closed in the spring. Most of those stories depicted affluent parents making arrangements to take turns overseeing distance learning in one another’s homes or hiring their own teachers, prompting concerns that the pods would exacerbate segregation or deepen the educational inequities thrown into sharp relief by school closures.
Her grant includes $600 for bean bag chairs and other seating, $200 for storage space for materials, $200 for headphones and school supplies, $1,000 for food, $500 for book club subscriptions, $400 for art supplies and a $6,000 stipend for Hatcher.
The 8-month-old nationwide network of parents and education advocates solicited proposals in August from individuals and groups supporting students who are traditionally underserved by schools. The grantees are funded using $700,000 from the VELA Education Fund to make awards of up to $25,000. VELA, in turn, is supported by the Walton Family Foundation and the Charles Koch Institute in underwriting several organizations, including the parent's union, that are funding micro schools, homeschool co-ops and other “out-of-system” models.
The parent's union received hundreds of applications, selecting 37 in two rounds of grant making. The first 13 received checks the last week of August, and 24 more were approved in September. Grant recipients were asked to track and report their spending in general terms.
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