News Update

Database of learning pods includes two dozen from California

For the past year, a university-based education research center based in the University of Washington, Bothell, has tracked one of the novel outgrowths of the pandemic: learning pods. The Center on Reinventing Public Education released “It Takes a Village: The pandemic learning pod movement, one year in,” a summary findings from its database of learning pods, earlier this month.

Also known as learning hubs, learning pods have taken many forms, including elite in-person mini-private schools. Many of the 331 learning hubs in center’s database, including two dozen from California, were organized primarily to even the playing field for some of those struggling the most from distance learning.

City governments, nonprofits like the YMCA, school districts and philanthropies separately and together have provided tutoring, internet services and academic enrichment, mostly for younger children in small non-school, in-person settings. Some have fees with a sliding scale, while others charge no money.

“The small pandemic-driven learning communities have broken open many of the assumptions we have about what school looks like, where it occurs and who supports student learning,” the authors wrote.

The California learning hubs in the database include:

“Whether the partnerships forged in this moment endure beyond the pandemic remains to be seen,” the authors wrote. “But the necessity of leveraging community resources on behalf of children is unlikely to dissipate anytime soon.”