Friday, March 6, 2020.

Three years ago, today, Abrome broke for spring break not knowing if we would return when spring break was scheduled to end on March 23rd. News of a dangerous novel coronavirus left us debating what our options were given the responsibility we had to support the young people in our learning community, and the duty we had to protect them, their households, and the staff at Abrome. When it became clear that we would not be able to safely come back together, we extended spring break to three weeks. On March 30th we came back together remotely and stayed remote through the end of that first pandacademic year. 

It was a challenging time. We needed to find ways to get some Abromies reliable internet connections and devices to log in to our remote gatherings. And connecting with each other over video was difficult when we were used to meeting in person. We struggled financially because some families pulled their kids when we went remote. We worked hard to maintain a sense of calm assurance that we would all come through it together.

It was a scary time. There were people in our immediate community who were at high risk. There were elderly grandparents, two people living with cancer, multiple immunocompromised folks, uninsured people and others without access to quality health care, frontline essential workers, and members who were at risk of losing their homes if they could not work. We wanted to protect and support them, and while we could protect them in part by not meeting in person, could we really support them against the conditions of society that put them at increased risk?

It was also a hopeful time. We saw people staying home to protect others from disease. We saw people coming together to support one another through mutual aid efforts. Against the backdrop of illness and death, for a moment we saw people focused less on getting ahead by leaving others behind, and more on considering how they could help others survive. We saw people questioning the practices and structures of not only schooling, but of society, and some began to believe that they could alter or abolish those practices and structures. 

In that moment, when no one knew how the pandemic would play out, Abrome made a choice that was clear ethically, but murky from a business perspective. We reaffirmed our commitment to community care. 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. It is easy to talk about centering the needs of others when the costs are low, or when it causes only a temporary inconvenience. It is another thing to do so when society demands that we turn away from those most impacted for our own benefit. Unfortunately, the moment of societal solidarity soon began to fall apart as the demands to turn away grew strong. We chose not to turn away. 

It is not preordained that “everyone will get it eventually.” We do not need to “learn to live with COVID.” Institutions are not powerless to stop the spread. We chose people over profits, and solidarity over enrollment. We chose to embrace a multi-layered approach to preventing the spread of COVID-19 that includes masking, physical distancing, filtration and ventilation, testing, and vaccination. Because of those efforts, and some luck, we have not had a single case of spread within our learning community. And our culture is stronger for it, even if our community is smaller—74% of lost enrollment since the pandemic began has due to our pandemic policies. 

Three years in, the pandemic continues. And we will continue to take it seriously because we are committed to community care.

—

Cover photo by Deborah Jackson 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

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.

Should we celebrate mask mandates in school? Yes and no.

In Texas the current debate about school reopenings revolves almost entirely around one issue—whether to mandate mask wearing or not. The problem with this hyperfocus on mask mandates is that it allows schools to remain sites of infection during this delta wave of the pandemic even if the side who is concerned about the spread of disease wins out over the side who is unconcerned about it. Masking is a necessary intervention, so yes we should celebrate mask mandates in schools. But it is only one of multiple interventions that can reduce the spread of disease, and it is not the most effective, particularly now.

The most effective intervention is to stay home during periods of uncontrolled spread. For schools, that means shutting down all in-person operations. But none of the school districts in the state or political parties in Texas seem to be considering not reopening covid infection sites for their majority unvaccinated populations.

Other interventions that are as important as masks include ventilation and vaccines.

Ventilation: if one must (and schooling is not a must) come together during periods of uncontrolled spread then a must includes excellent ventilation—quickly filtering inside air or replacing inside air with outside air. The minimum standard should be six air changes per hour, which most schools are incapable of achieving. So the best ventilation option is to go outdoors once spread is not wildly out of control. But, because spread is wildly out of control schools shouldn’t even be reopening now.

Vaccines: vaccines greatly reduce the chances of serious illness or death relative to being unvaccinated, and they also significantly shorten the infectious period for breakthrough infections. The chances of serious illness or death from Covid-19 are magnitudes of order greater than the chances of vaccine injury, and the negative outcomes of Covid-19 dwarf the negative outcomes of vaccine injury. Everyone should get vaccinated if they can as it will help protect them and ultimately help protect everyone around them. But, because spread is wildly out of control schools shouldn’t even be reopening now, especially since almost every K-12 school in Texas has a majority unvaccinated population.

So celebrate mask mandates in school, yes, but demand that schools shut down in-person learning during this delta wave of the pandemic. And if the schools refuse to close, then parents should refuse to send their kids to school, students should refuse to show up to school, and teachers and staff should refuse to show up for work. Public health requires collective action. Mask mandates are not sufficient in this moment.

There are better alternatives for schools. Educators and decisions makers are encouraged to read and copy our plan at http://www.abrome.com/covid-19

Illustration by Rose Wong published in the NYT, adapted from Ian M. Mackay and James T. Reason.

The criminalization of houselessness and the complicity of educators

On May 1st, 90,428 people voted for Proposition B, re-criminalizing houselessness in Austin, TX. Only 66,292 people voted against the proposition. Austin had long criminalized homelessness through a no sit, no lie ordinance that allowed the police to ticket and arrest the houseless—yes, for sitting or lying down in public. But in 2019 the city council voted to decriminalize sitting and lying down in public, which at the time seemed like a big win for civil liberties and civil rights, locally. Of course the police harassment and abuse of the houseless that preceded no-sit, no-lie continued even after city council removed the ordinance, but far fewer houseless people were being ticketed and arrested which helped limit a lot of the harm.

In February of 2020, the political action committee Save Austin Now started a petition drive to reinstate the City’s camping ban. A second petition attempt succeeded in February of this year, leading to the ballot measure being included in the May election. When people attacked the effort saying that criminalization was anti-homeless and did not do anything to help end houselessness, Save Austin Now and their allies (such as the Austin Police Association) often argued that they were not trying to criminalize homelessness—that they were actually trying to help the homeless! But the language of the proposition is unambiguous, it focuses wholly on criminalization and not at all on helping the houseless:

Shall an ordinance be adopted that would create a criminal offense and a penalty for sitting or lying down on a public sidewalk or sleeping outdoors in and near the downtown area around the University of Texas campus; create a criminal offense and penalty for solicitation, defined as requesting money or another thing of value, at specific hours and locations or for solicitation in a public area that is deemed aggressive in manner; create a criminal offense and penalty for camping in any public area not designated by the Parks and Recreation Department?

The new ban is expected to go into effect on May 11th. Currently, we do not know what that means. Will the police immediately begin ticketing and arresting the houseless? Will the city or the state begin to raze current encampments? Or will the city wait until more support is in place to help the houseless people who will be displaced? The questions are coming not just from the houseless and those who care about them, but also the supporters of Proposition B.

What we all know, those who care about the welfare of the houseless as well as those who want to disappear the houseless, is that Proposition B is intended to harm the houseless. Fines, jail time, and threats of violence only deepen the struggles of the houseless community, making it more difficult for them to escape houselessness. It is uncivilized and inhumane to punish people for being too poor to afford a safe place to go. The harm of criminalizing houselessness is tangible and real. Those who support Proposition B are okay with harming the houseless because they just want them out of sight and out of mind—in jail, in prison, pushed out to another city, or dead.

Image created by Eli H. Spencer Heyman (Twitter: @elium2)

It is no surprise that the people who are most in support of criminalizing houselessness tend to be those who feel most removed from the threat of falling into houselessness, and who do not see the humanity in those they see as the other. The map of voter support for Proposition B (see image) maps quite well onto the map of financial support for Save Austin Now, as well as onto the higher income neighborhoods of the city. While the initiative was driven by Republicans, it was successful because of the eager support of a large share of affluent Democrats and independents.

Unfortunately, it was also supported by too many educators, as well. As I pointed out a week ago, wannabe school board members and too many educators have rallied around issues such as criminalizing houselessness, protecting and promoting white supremacy, attacking trans kids, and removing pandemic safety protocols from public and private spaces and organizations. What all of these positions have in common is the dehumanization of historically marginalized and oppressed groups, or a complete disregard for the lives of those groups.

I was recently made aware of some eager and harmful social media comments by a local nature educator who serves many homeschooling families and some local school communities. His name is Chris Hyde and he is the founder and leader of Natureversity. The reason I feel compelled to call him out by name and raise this point is two-fold. First, it is vital for people in alternative education communities and the homeschooling and unschooling communities to understand that a disregard for the humanity of others is not congruent with a belief in child and youth liberation, as liberation requires a commitment to anti-oppression as a base to build off of. Second, Abrome paid Hyde to take us through a multi-day outdoor training last summer, and one of the Facilitators at Abrome had previously worked with him at another organization, and it is important to us that we publicly distance ourselves from his rhetoric and actions.

Some might dismiss Hyde’s comments as focused on cleaning up trash, whether he meant picking up actual garbage, or if perhaps he considered the personal belongings of displaced people to be trash to clean up. We know for a fact that in the past the local police have forced houseless people to leave their stuff behind at the threat of arrest, and then they would trash their personal belongings, or a ‘cleanup crew’ would come in and threw everything away. They’ve even destroyed water bottles in the summer, and thrown away mobility devices. Some might even question whether cleaning up is a euphemism for disappearing people, such as mass arresting the houseless, or putting them on buses with a one-way ticket out of town. Hyde’s comments did not appear to go that far, but plenty of people on the same “Take Back Austin” Facebook page thread were willing to go there (images attached). Take Back Austin, by the way, seems to be a collection of anti-houseless, pro-MAGA folks led by right-wing City Councilwoman Mackenzie Kelly who somehow feel that the affluent Austinites need to take back their city from houseless folks. As if the houseless have any power whatsoever. Inhumane and delusional.

We had some difficult conversations around houselessness during the training that we did with Hyde this summer. We made clear why we would not call the police on the houseless, and we argued that houselessness is a choice made by society far more than it is a choice made by those experiencing it. That in a just, compassionate society that prioritized the wellbeing of everyone, that houselessness would not exist. We clearly did not move him to recognize the humanity of houseless people, or our collective responsibility to each other and the environment.

Whether or not to criminalize houselessness is far more than a question of aesthetics, or a effective tool to combat houselessness. It is a question of ethics, and a question of what type of society do we want to live in. Any educator who believes that all children should be treated as full people must be opposed to the othering, marginalization, and oppression of the houseless. After all, over 2 million children experience houselessness each year. Instead, educators should be working to help change the conditions of society so that children are able to grow up in a world that will nurture them and allow them to contribute to their families, their friends, their neighborhoods, and to improve the human condition. And in order to help create that world we must begin with a firm commitment to anti-oppression.

Texas school board election proves there is no such thing as non-partisan elections

On Tuesday, I drove out to the Bee Cave City Hall for the last day of early voting. I have voted early multiple times at that location over the past seven years for a variety of races up to congressional and presidential, but I’ve never shown up for a local election with what might seem to be of such little political consequence, on paper. The only options on my ballot were for two seats on the Eanes ISD Board of Trustees (the school board of one of the most affluent, suburban school districts in Texas). Yet the line snaked around the large room where the voting took place, out the door, down a staircase, and from door to door of city hall.

The reporting in Austin argues that much of the large turnout is a response to Proposition B, which aims to re-criminalize the houseless, giving the Austin Police Department greater flexibility to harass, ticket, and arrest houseless individuals in order to erase them from the view of businesses, homeowners, and commuters. But I think that reporting comes up short. There may have been a couple of Austin voters who could chime in on Proposition B (given the sprawling, high property value grabbing boundaries of the city) at Bee Cave City Hall, but most would be those voting on the Eanes School Board races, or for Lakeway City Council and Lake Travis School Board races.

The reality is that turnout for this May election is high because there is an ongoing ideological struggle that has come to the fore about what this country should look like, and the politics of that struggle are now overtly involved in local school board elections, and people are turning out for it. This is not to suggest that the struggle has never been part of non-partisan local elections, or that we have moved beyond a mythical democratic state where the interests of all people were advanced through elections. The difference is that in the aftermath of the Trump years, and the 2020 presidential election in particular, there is a powerful political movement that feels that they need to take back a country that has been ‘stolen’ from them, and that they should not feel embarrassed to publicly embrace and extoll positions that explicitly serve whiteness and privilege, or that tear down those who do not.

Public schools have always been political tools that have served the status quo, even in their most progressive iterations. Even if one wants to waive off a history of schooling that includes participation in genocidal aims (i.e., residential schools), the erasure of culture (e.g., assimilation of immigrants), and the denial of equal opportunity (e.g., racial segregation of schools); they cannot in good faith ignore how schooling continues to sort children based on socio-economic status; funneling more affluent students into top ranked colleges and universities; while poor and BIPOC children are disproportionately left to try to survive on low wage work, or are fed into the machinery of the military or the prison-industrial complex. The sorting mechanism does not only work within the schools, but among school communities, as well. Eanes ISD, for example, is considered an excellent school in part because of the ways that affluence and whiteness allow it to serve as a feeder school for top colleges while avoiding the abusive and overly punitive behavior focused practices that less affluent and more diverse schools feel pressured to engage in.

Nonetheless, the circumstances of the past year have led too many to believe that their local schools are not doing enough to reinforce and amplify disparities in society. They don’t just want the schools to quietly serve the status quo, they want them to lead the charge. In the Eanes School District, the fight has revolved around three issues: Covid-19, trans inclusion, and racism. The incumbents Jennifer Champagne and James Spradley have taken moderate to progressive positions on each, while the challengers Jen Stevens and Nigel Stout have taken conservative to reactionary positions. I will briefly touch upon each of them here.

Covid-19
When the pandemic hit, many followed the lead of then President Trump and dismissed it as “no worse than the flu,” a Democratic hoax, a pharmaceutical scam, or a biological warfare weapon deployed by China against the United States. And they tended to jump from one argument to the next and back and forth as new facts emerged that poked holes in each of their talking points. While not all people who dismissed the pandemic were dyed-in-the-wool Trump supporters, they all tended to agree with him that the so-called lockdowns were an overreaction that would lead to the cure being worse than the disease. With regard to schools, this led to demands that they reopen immediately for the sake of student mental health, even though the advocates seemed to have never noticed the school-associated mental health problems that youth faced prior to the pandemic, and without any recognition that maybe any mental health struggles some children were facing might have more to do with a disease that has killed over 575,000 in the United States than it does with missing class time. The demands to reopen schools were also often coupled with a sudden concern for the welfare of poor or BIPOC children who would be ‘left behind’ academically, even though that is what schools have always done, and even though poor and BIPOC communities would bear the brunt of the pandemic in terms of hospitalizations and deaths.

In the Eanes School District, candidate Jen Stevens led the fight against a phased in reopening that required three weeks of virtual learning to start the year, and would allow every student who wanted to return back to school to be able to do so by mid-October. She and the organization she started, Eanes Kids First, however, demanded that all kids be allowed to return immediately, with many members demanding that they do so unmasked, “No waivers. No excuses.” The Eanes Kids First Facebook page, meanwhile, has become a platform for Jen Stevens’ school board run, while also supporting Nigel Stout’s run. Relatedly, just up the road at Lake Travis ISD, the primary rival school district of Eanes, Kara Bell is a candidate for school board. Bell is so firmly in the anti-masking camp that she was willing to get arrested exercising her so-called right to ignore the requests of a private business that people mask up or leave.

Trans inclusion
Even though I live in the Eanes School District, I had no idea that trans inclusion has become such politically charged school issue over the past year. Apparently, a teacher had the audacity to read to their 4th grade class Call Me Max, a picture book about a trans boy educating his teacher and classmates about his identity. In the attached video of a candidate forum hosted by Eanes Chinese Parents, both Stevens and Stout make clear their opposition to the book being read. Stevens claims that reading the book violates the parent-adult relationship, while Stout claims that the book undermines parents’ rights and that “[trans] kids should not have extra rights.” Related to the issue of trans inclusion, Stevens went on to say that there should “absolutely not” be any unisex bathrooms made available to trans kids, with Stout also opposing them. The incumbents, meanwhile, highlighted that the reason they brought in a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (“DEI”) consultant was so that they could support students and teachers in finding ways to support everyone.

Racism
The third issue is related to the second, in that both can be slotted into a diversity controversy, but it deserves to be more narrowly labeled as racism (or white supremacy). In the aftermath of the George Floyd killing and the uprising that followed, many schools were forced to reflect on racism within their communities. Many students from affluent schools across the country created social media accounts to document racist experiences at their school, to include Racism at Westlake which focused on the high school in Eanes ISD. The school district, ostensibly in response to the events of the summer, hired a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion consultant to “enhance community, staff and racial awareness — in addition to guiding the district in addressing social justice and racism.” That was apparently too much for many of the conservative white families to handle.

Stevens and Stout were unsurprisingly opposed to the current diversity initiatives, imaginary and real. Both objected to hiring the DEI consultant. And even though it does not appear that Eanes has seriously considered bringing Critical Race Theory into the curriculum, both complained about it (in the YouTube video previously highlighted) with the standard conservative claim that it is racist, which is not in any way an objective take. Stevens said that CRT “ruins excellence, it ruins children, it ruins communities, and it divides under the guise of claiming teaching unity.”

Maybe the board isn’t white enough?

Incumbent candidate Jennifer Champagne argued that she made DEI a priority at the board level because of the racism that students and families have experienced at Eanes. Stevens responded that she was more concerned about the diversity initiatives alienating the part of the community that feels “very pushed aside, very discounted, very disregarded,” which just happens to map really well onto the part of the community that feels as though their country has been ‘stolen’ from them.

If anyone may have been left thinking that perhaps race does not really matter in the school board race, the candidate forum asked Stevens to clarify the intention behind her social media claim that Covid-19 was a “stupid China made virus.” She said that the “virus did come from China” but dismissed it by saying that “if it offends anyone I wouldn’t want to say something like that.” Well, I guess intention trumps impact. Meanwhile, Stout defended his claim that he does not “subscribe to the fact that EISD is systemically racist.” I guess if you don’t see the problem it is not a problem.

Amplifying disparities
I previously mentioned Proposition B, the effort to re-criminalize houselessness in Austin. It seems far removed from the school board election, but it points to the real reason turnout is so high, and the disparate responses between the school board incumbents and challengers regarding Covid-19, trans inclusion, and racism. There is a desire by many to return to a society where the benefits accrue to those with the most power, even though that is the society we already live in. They imagine that engaging in collective social action such as masking and staying at home when possible during a global pandemic is a violation of their individual rights, and that the elevated death rates of front line workers and communities of color is just the cost of freedom. They imagine that acknowledging the humanity of trans kids and making space for them somehow threatens parental rights. They believe that addressing racism is the real racism, and that systemic racism can be waived off as just an endless stream of individual acts of racism that can be addressed through school suspensions, so we should ignore systemic effects. To have institutions work toward ending systemic racism is apparently an infringement on the right of individuals to ignore it. And in a similar vein, not harassing, ticketing, and arresting the houseless for existing within the city limits is somehow a great burden on those who do not suffer from houselessness. It’s not enough for the houseless to suffer from their material condition, they must be made to suffer more at the hands of the criminal justice system.

Save Austin Now donors

Many of those who benefit the most from systems of dispossession feel called to step up and take back their country in elections large and small, or to run for office. And the dehumanization of the poor, BIPOC communities, trans kids, and the houseless in the effort to take their country back is the necessary cost of doing business. Who do you think they’re taking the country back from?

Even though most of the people living in the Eanes School District are not residents of Austin and cannot vote on Proposition B, some of the strongest support for criminalizing the houseless in the City of Austin comes from people in the Eanes School District. In the attached map representing the donors to Save Austin Now (the group that has been pushing Proposition B) the people who live in Eanes (largely consisting of West Lake Hills and the two dark areas to the left/west of it) have contributed an outsized proportion of money that has been used to convince the public that houselessness needs to be re-criminalized. It’s quite remarkable that folks who do not even live in Austin are so invested in disappearing the houseless (not helping them) in Austin.

When you dig into the list of donors, you will come across multiple educators on the list, highlighting that it is not a rarity that an educator could support the dehumanization of marginalized people. But beyond that observation, one name stands out: Michael Ajouz. He is so invested in criminalizing the houseless that he donated $10,000 of his personal money to the cause. That is far less than some others donated, so why am I focused on him? Well he also donated $25,000 to Jen Stevens, for a school board race. What is the common thread? It’s not a stretch to figure it out.

It should be obvious that I voted for Champagne and Spradley for school board. Not because I think that they are fighting for the liberation of children while working to undo systems of oppression. Not even close. I do not believe that schooling can be used as a vehicle to undo the harm of schooling. But I do appreciate that they are attempting to limit harm, or maybe they feel pressured to speak that language because of Stevens and Stout. On the other hand, I see Stevens and Stout as wanting to double down on the harm, to amplify disparities, to maintain the status quo, or maybe to Make America Great Again.

People who oppose candidates such as Jen Stevens and Nigel Stout can still benefit tremendously from systems of oppression. They can still be wedded to a defense of the status quo, and they need not be allies of children or other marginalized groups. But I hope that enough people recognize, at the very least, that in this very partisan school board election, and in partisan local elections across the nation, that they can choose to be in opposition to a political movement that wants to actively harm those with the least power.

Day 93 of AY20-21: the final day of a long week

I slept in until 6:00 a.m. on Friday because the early morning wake ups are not as helpful when the internet is down. Plus, the added sleep was needed by my body as it tries to process all of the trauma that was all around us in Central Texas during the week.

That morning my phone was able to work fairly well as a hotspot and I had enough internet to read some online articles. I read some education related articles, which is never a super great way to start the day because of how frustrating it is to hear education folks talking about how to manipulate kids into performing for the system, instead of using the system as a vehicle to maximize the quality of life for the child. Oftentimes the focus of these articles is not even on the children, it is on the adults, but with the same end of performance in mind.

One such article talked about the importance of schools reducing stress and burnout on teachers, and not placing the responsibility of well-being on the teachers who are subjected to the structures and practices of schooling. It said, “Instead of “make space to restore your balance” or “find time to exercise more,” schools need to acknowledge their role in the problem and put in place the structures, practices, and time for self-care, reflection, and general well-being among educators, school staff, and the leaders themselves.” And yes, absolutely, who can disagree with that?

They even provided seven ideas for schools to start with:

1. Survey Teachers—And Listen to Them

2. Give Teachers an (Actual) Break

3. Stop Watching the Clock

4. Create Shared Agreements

5. Plan for Regular and Informal Check-Ins

6. Schedule Planning Time for Teachers

7. Model and Support Wellness

That is certainly a great place to start. But what about the kids? How could this list be altered to serve children? What if we tried to make sense of the list by replacing the word "teachers" with "students", and adjusting the rest of it so that it was relevant to young people? Let’s start with the quoted sentence above, first: “Instead of “[mindfulness]” schools need to acknowledge their role in the problem and put in place the structures, practices, and time for self-care, reflection, and general well-being among [students].”

And here are seven ideas on how to get started:

1. Survey [students]—And Listen to Them

2. Give [students] an (Actual) Break

3. Stop [forcing attendance]

4. Create [consensual] Agreements

5. Plan for Regular and Informal Check-Ins

6. Allow for unlimited free play

7. Model and Support Wellness

It is not very difficult to serve the needs of children … if you let go of schooling.

Then I began to work on the blog post for day 92 so that I did not fall behind on my goal of one blogpost per day during this pandacademic year. While I was doing that I received a Slack message from Facilitator Ariel concerning some anxiety he was feeling over not being present enough at Abrome during the week as he was supporting mutual aid efforts in the area. I jumped on a quick call to assure him that what he was doing was vitally important, and that he was modeling exactly the type of behavior that is so critical for young people to see—people helping people. It’s not like sitting around constantly checking to see if internet is working, like me, was exactly being present at Abrome.

In the morning meeting Facilitator Ariel led with deep breaths as a grounding practice, then shared the agenda, and very quickly reviewed the Community Awareness Board. Each of us then shared something we had been grateful for during the challenging week: having good service at house, all of you at Abrome, and my Subaru; grateful for everyone at Abrome—life has been rough and you help me get through it; spectrum person who turned on the internet; same as [what the prior Learner / his sibling said]; a friend in Atlanta checked in on me and shared some really helpful information; "I rather keep it to myself”; I have power and electricity; mutual support among family and community; being in power grid where power stays on; dogs.

Next up was the weekly Check-in and Change-up meetings where we co-create culture with one another. Everyone stuck around for the Check-in which was appreciated. One of the older Learners raised an awareness of people talking over others in meetings. No one else raised any awarenesses so Facilitator Lauren adjourned the meeting and then started the Change-up meeting, which two Learners stuck around for. While we only had two prior awarenesses on the Community Awareness Board and were only considering one new one, we really dug in to understand what our needs were and how to articulate them. The older Learner in particular was very engaged in the process. It was a good meeting that we can hopefully leverage over our last two days of the cycle (Monday and Tuesday).

Modified high five

Having only completed one 7-minute workout during the week, I was intent on trying to make on Friday. Unfortunately, because I was still without reliable internet I was going to have to try to do it off of my phone. Facilitator Lauren helped me test to see if I could simultaneously run Zoom and the workout app off of my phone, and I found that I could, but that any attendees would not be able to hear the app. I decided that I would just narrate the workout and do the countdowns for the attendees. It turned out to be just the two of us, and it turned out to be an energizing and tiring workout. We did not miss our chance to give each other high fives after the workout, as usual, but I had to adapt my high five considering I had no video.

As the day inched forward I spent much of my time doomscrolling on my phone. While doomscrolling is typically not a great way to spend time, I had too much on my mind to do anything as productive as writing, or to do anything as enjoyable as reading. Besides, we were on the tail end of a humanitarian disaster in Austin. Not a Katrina level disaster, but enough of a disaster that hundreds of thousands of people in Austin realized that our best hope was to help each other, as those in positions of leadership are anywhere from ambivalent to antagonistic to the needs of the people. The good news is that the ice was melting, people were getting their power back, and most of the housed and the houseless survived the Texas freeze. But we were not in the clear quite yet, as many had been stranded with insufficient food and supplies for the week. Additionally, most of the city had no water. Thankfully there were people on the ground helping others.

Meanwhile, Facilitator Ariel was busy driving all over town picking up and delivering supplies. The biggest haul of the day was when they got word that Whole Foods was about to throw out a bunch of food, so he and some others rushed over to see if they could take the food to immediately distribute to those in need. Fortunately, everyone at Whole Foods was in agreement that the food should be offered up to the mutual aid effort.

Another unexpected benefit of the freeze is that I think all the Abrome Learners and their families will have a good appreciation for what it means to be prepared to meet in-person in cold weather now. But the Learners who were without power for days may feel that they now have an immunity to the cold, although I don’t think that will be the case.

On Discord, one of the Learners pointed out that it has been 10 years since the “Friday” song by Rebecca Black was released. I looked for an update about that and stumbled upon a video that pointed out that she was so relentlessly bullied at school after her video went viral that her mom pulled her from school so that she could homeschool. Great move, mom! I later found out that she had just released a remix and shared that on Discord, as well. That was about the extent of my interaction with the Learners outside of the meetings on Friday. I had a Discord hangout offering and a free write offering on the schedule for that day, but no Learners showed up for them.

Facilitator Lauren was able to connect with two adolescent Learners during the day. The two who had been without power for much of the week. Both meetings were positive and energetic, with one of the check-in ins running a half hour long. During that meeting the Learner was more interested in talking about the pandemic and whether or not we would be able to have a normal, pandemic-free fall. Facilitator Lauren also had a movement and music offering that an older Learner showed up for where they shared music with each other.

By the afternoon I was in position to host the afternoon roundup. I shared the agenda, reviewed the new awareness and the updated practices on the Community Awareness Board, and then opened the meeting for announcements. For the prompts I asked people to please raise their hand either on video or with the Zoom emoji. The prompt was, what is one or two things you learned this week that could help you help others during the next crisis? I asked for the Learners to take the prompt seriously so that we could all learn from each other. We took time to reflect and then shared: get to know your neighbors, build mutual aid networks; conserve electricity and water, be mindful of how my actions impact others, put more effort and energy into helping other people prep; I learned we should be prepared no matter what because we never know, trying to help others; get extra firewood to share; check for updates to share info, limit electricity; be prepared — get a flashlight, be on standby, have water and food; getting to know your neighbors; conserve electricity; I have friends who have trailers and stuff so I can use them to help others; didn’t learn anything. Well, hopefully the person who did not learn anything learned something from the other Learners.

And that was the day. And that was the week. A particularly exhausting week in a particularly exhausting month of the pandacademic year. We survived, and many of us left the week with a much greater appreciation of community and of finding ways to support others.

Day 92 of AY20-21: getting through another day during the Texas freeze

Thursday was day 92 of our pandacademic year and what felt like day 30 of the Texas freeze. We said we were going to be remote two nights prior, and without access to internet and therefore unable to do much of the work that I typically do before the Abrome day starts, and because I was feeling extremely tired, I had planned to sleep in an extra two hours on Thursday. But before I went to sleep I did check on the situation in Austin and it did not look pretty.

One of the most concerning issues was that even though many homes were thankfully starting to get power back, they were now running out of water for a variety of reasons (i.e., their pipes were frozen, their pipes burst, water mains burst). And while the state was able to keep hospitals powered up by cutting power to homes, they could not do the same with water.

Multiple hospitals in Austin lost water on Wednesday evening. There are obviously major implications to a hospital losing water including limitations on being able to stop the spread of infections through hand washing and being unable to dispose of human waste. On top of that, one of the hospitals lost heat. While what we are facing in Texas is no Katrina level type of humanitarian disaster, it is a disaster nonetheless, and this news was super concerning.

I was then sent a picture of a private text message about how bad things really were. The hospitals that were already dealing with people being brought in on the verge of freezing to death, from traffic accidents from the iced over roads, and the ever present reality of Covid-19, now had to deal with overflowing toilets and flooded operating rooms.

On top of that, then Austin issued a citywide boil water notice. So now the water was unsafe to consume, if you even had running water. Oh, but many people had no electricity or cell coverage so how were they to know there was a boil water notice? And people with power likely had no way to boil the water. The city also told people to be prepared to not have access to water, potable or not, for days, maybe even deep into next week. It’s been a lot for so many to deal with.

While there has been much pain and suffering in Central Texas there did seem to be hope on the horizon. The weather was going to get better during the day, and each day through the weekend. The power situation was looking like it would improve for most over the coming 24 hours, and that would make the water situation a bit more bearable and less dangerous. The roads would get better by the day. And perhaps most fortuitously, with the forced quarantine of hundreds of thousands of people the levels of Covid-19 infection will hopefully drop substantially on the tail end of this.

Facilitator Lauren with power and internet at home!

Facilitator Lauren led the morning meeting. 11 people showed up, including 8 Learners, a pretty remarkable showing considering all that was going on this week. Facilitator Lauren first led a grounding practice that consisted of deep breaths. Then she set game shifting to jump in (meaning when one wanted to talk they should just talk), reviewed our practices on the Community Awareness Board, and then shared the prompt. Everyone then responded with the one thing they would have gotten if they could go back to the days before the storm: a heated blanket; water and firewood, or a 2” lift on car; firewood; food for my lizard; cereal; pizza; more research into what outdoor gear could be used indoors; warmer weather or a scarf; IDK, playing with friends; nothing (my only problem has been internet; n/a (in Colorado).

After the morning meeting I was pretty much out of contact with the Learners for much of the day. I had no internet and even my cell reception was terrible, so Facilitator Lauren removed my offerings and check-ins from the calendar. I spent much of the day reading, thinking, and communicating with others over text.

Loading up supplies

Meanwhile, Facilitator Ariel moved into his one-to-one check-in with an older Learner, and then took off for the day. He again spent his day working with Austin Mutual Aid collecting and distributing much needed supplies to folks all over the city. The mutual aid work that he and the others in Austin were doing this week, as well as in other cities impacted by the disaster, was life-saving.

More supplies

Facilitator Lauren, at home with power and internet, helped keep everyone connected during the day. This included connecting with the Learners’ families that she had not connected with the day before.

Facilitator Lauren also had check-ins with two adolescent Learners who are excited for all of this disaster stuff to be over with (depending on the definition of disaster that could be a long time). In the afternoon she hosted a yoga offering, which one other Learner dropped in for.

Delivering supplies with Austin Mutual Aid

During the day I received a call from a classmate of mine from Stanford. He shared news of the tragic death of another classmate of ours who was also my classmate at West Point. I had not spoken to the deceased classmate in several years, and the news brought a lot of feelings up for me. In the midst of the crisis that millions of people were dealing with in Texas, I was reminded of the sharp pain that each casualty caused on the lives of those around them. I also thought deeply about the reasons we choose to stay close to some people and move away from others, and the role that personal values, appeals to power, and personal priorities can play in that. Even though this classmate was physical close to me, he was also a million miles away.

Nice turnout for the afternoon roundup

The end of the day came fast. I was in a better internet situation for the afternoon roundup than I was the morning meeting, but not in a good enough situation to turn my video on. With my internet situation and with Facilitator Ariel in the streets helping people, Facilitator Lauren took charge of the afternoon roundup. She started with the count off practice that I used for the afternoon roundup on Wednesday. It would be harder on this day as we again had eight Learners show up (ten people total including the two Facilitators). We got it on our third try, with my number being lucky number nine. Facilitator Lauren then reviewed the Community Awareness Board, and set our communication style with popcorn. Then each of us shared one thing that we can do during the evening to enjoy ourselves despite what’s been happening around us: work on cleaning my room; play video games; I have power now so I can bake acorn squash bread; play Minecraft; read books; getting Nerds (the candy); spend time with boyfriend on face time; play games with friends; breathe; breathe, too.

What a day.

Central Texas waives the white flag of surrender as schools reopen this week

This week too many students, teachers, and staff will be returning to schools. They’ll be returning to schools even though we are in the middle of a pandemic, in the worst stage of the pandemic, only ten days removed from mass infection events called Christmas gatherings, and less than four days removed from mass infection events called New Year’s Eve gatherings.

All indicators point toward closing schools

Austin Public Health (APH) moved to risk stage level five on December 23rd, the worst stage possible, meaning there is “widespread uncontrolled transmission threatening our healthcare infrastructure.” It’s only gotten worse since then. The positivity rate in Travis County is over 12%, the 7 day moving average of new cases is 505, and the 7 day moving average of new hospital admissions is 74. In spite of the widespread uncontrolled transmission of the disease, and despite the APH recommending that schools consider going virtual for at least two weeks after the holiday break, all of the major school districts in Central Texas are reopening this week. Most of the private schools, as well.

Central Texas schools have waived the white flag of surrender. But why?

The pressure to reopen schools is overwhelming. Public schools fear losing state funding, and private schools fear losing tuition dollars. The Texas Education Agency requires that public schools must provide on-campus instruction options for students, and the Governor of Texas has mandated that there be no occupancy limits placed on public or private schools. Without limitations imposed by the state, schools have largely been unwilling to go up against politicians, business interests, and parents who are increasingly demanding that schools remain open.

But shouldn’t schools simply choose people over profits? Well why should they? They do not benefit institutionally from unilaterally closing. The benefits to broader society would be at their expense (financially or as a going concern). They would help slow the transmission of Covid-19, but without a societal effort to rein in the spread, their closures would be insufficient to stop the spread. Without a unified effort among public schools, the schools would not be able to force the state to give them the funds needed to pay their expenses. And without a unified effort among private schools, the schools that close would lose enrollment to schools that remain open.

So surrendering to Covid-19 is better than financial insolvency, right?

No. It is not. Schools should choose to prioritize public health over the demands of parents, business interests, and the state. Schools should choose people over profits.

Schools like to take credit for training students to be critical thinkers, and training students to become moral citizens. Schools like to promote the racist and classist claim that they are often "the only safe place” for many children. This summer many schools proudly proclaimed that they believe that Black Lives Matter. How can they reconcile such claims with the decision to reopen schools?

Critical thinkers would be able to work out that schools are not magical environments where the disease chooses not to spread. Critical thinkers understand that if bringing groups of people together indoors for extended periods of time is unsafe during a pandemic, then that includes the schoolhouse. Critical thinkers understand that Covid-19 does not have a 99.97% survival rate, that children are able to contract the disease and spread it even if they do so at lower rates, that adults also work in school environments, and that most people in the school environment have family members or housemates that they go home to.

Moral citizens would temporarily put aside profit seeking to stop a pandemic that has already killed 350,000 Americans, and will most certainly have killed over 400,000 by the end of January. Moral citizens would embrace the idea of minor personal sacrifice such as masking and staying home as much as possible over the next several months in order to save perhaps hundreds of thousands of lives, so that we could allow the vaccine rollout to move us toward herd immunity before reopening everything. Moral citizens would acknowledge the reasonable needs of others and accommodate them, instead of demanding that they have a right to do as they please, no matter the costs.

Schools are where people gather with those outside of their household

A safe place for children during a pandemic means a place where they do not need to fear contracting Covid-19. And even if they do not fear it, it means a place where a child does not need to run an elevated risk of catching the disease. A safe place for children is a place that does not allow them to take the disease home to family members who will contract the disease. A safe place for children is a place where the adults they care about are not put in a position where they have to choose between life or employment.

And if Black Lives Matter then schools would not be ignoring the demands of the majority of Black families who do not believe schools should be open. If Black Lives Matter then schools would recognize the disproportionate toll the pandemic has had on Black people because of the racial injustices that are baked into the economy, the health sector, and government services.

Now is not the time to waive the white flag of surrender. Now is the time for the schools of Central Texas, public and private, to fight back. Now is the time to fight for the health and welfare of students, teachers, and staff. It’s time to fight for the health and welfare of the families and household members of students, teachers, and staff, even if they don’t appreciate it. Now is the time to fight for public health so that we can bring the pandemic under control to prevent needless suffering and death. If all the schools opt out of in-person schooling during this period of widespread, uncontrolled community spread then we can win this fight. But that will take a lot of courage from school leaders.

——

Cover photo by Jackson Simmer on Unsplash

Preparing to be outdoors this school year

One of the most confusing things about the debate over how to reopen schools is that so few people are advocating that students spend their schooldays outdoors, and that so few schools (if any) are choosing to leave the schoolhouse behind. We know that the best way to prevent the spread of Covid-19 is to stay home. The second best way seems to be to avoid spending time indoors with others. But despite this knowledge, schools are focused on reducing the number of students inside the building at any given time through hybrid or part-time models, mandatory masking, social distancing enforcement, hygiene protocols, screening of students and staff, and isolation and quarantine. While these efforts will help to reduce the likelihood of transmission in schools, they are insufficient. Bringing students and staff together in schools is going to lead to outbreaks that will contribute to the spread of Covid-19.

In early June we announced our plan to operate in geographically separated, five- to eight-person operating cells in public parks. Being outdoors in small groups greatly reduces the risk of transmission among our community members, limits the potential of a community outbreak, and helps us protect our family members, housemates, and the broader Austin community. It is the right thing to do, and it allows us to continue to come together to build community with and support each other during these difficult times. But it is going to be hot. Texas is hot in September. And heat can be dangerous. And Facilitators need to keep their wits about them so that they can attend to the needs of the Learners.

In order to prepare to be outdoors this school year I am focusing on acclimating to the heat, physical fitness, and training.

Heat acclimation

There are no two ways about it, to be able to operate in the heat (and humidity), we need to spend time outdoors. To develop my heat tolerance I have been relying less on air conditioning when indoors. While I am not yet comfortable with 78 degrees indoors, I am comfortable with 75 degrees. And I will slowly allow the temperature to rise. And beginning this week I am spending an hour during the day outdoors doing activities such as reading or gardening. Each week I will increase the time I spend outdoors by one hour. By the week of August 17th I will be spending six hours outdoors, the length of our day at Abrome. I will then continue to spend at least six hours outdoors every other day for the remainder of the summer. One can lose their tolerance in as little as one week. And as the Abrome Learners will tell you, hydrate or die. I choose hydration.

Physical Fitness

Facilitating with young children and adolescents can be exhausting even in air conditioned environments. Doing so outdoors this coming September will not be any easier. I need to improve my physical fitness levels so that I can support the Abrome Learners in the Texas heat. Just like my heat acclimation efforts, I am slowly easing into my preparation and not jumping in too aggressively. I am continuing to do 7-minute workouts and pull-ups as I had been doing during the time that we were operating remotely. But I have also begun running three times per week (starting very slowly) and doing two light yoga sessions per week. As my endurance and cardiovascular fitness improves I plan to increase the intensity of my runs and pick up weight training. As we move into late August, as part of my heat acclimation efforts, I will also spend time hiking in the public parks we will be operating out of this coming year.

Training

It is one thing to prepare to be in the heat all day as an individual, but as a Facilitator I am also responsible for the Abrome Learners. Therefore, in early August the Abrome Facilitators (and prospective Facilitators) will go through a CPR and basic first aid training. I am also bringing in a trainer from a nature school to help us develop protocols and skills that will allow us to support Learners in various outdoor contexts and conditions. In mid-August the Facilitators will come together to practice facilitation in outdoor settings among ourselves. Then, the following week, we will invite current Abrome Learners to join Facilitators for four days as we practice the skills and activities that we will be using in the coming year. On the fifth day Facilitators will review everything that we experienced and learned so that we can finalize our preparations before we open on September 8th (or whenever pandemic conditions allow us to).

The challenges of this coming year are daunting but exciting. There is still so much to prepare for and so much to learn. I don’t know what I don’t know, but I am leaning heavily on people who have experience working with young people outdoors, and I am trying to remember some of the more challenging lessons learned from my Army Ranger School days (from 20 years ago). This is going to be such a fun learning experience!

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Photo by ana fernandez from FreeImages