Script

Script (0:00 – 2:36)

Jocelyn Dehaas: The amount of money that I spend on groceries now is absolutely
insane.
So, the kids’ questionnaire is “Do you have any ideas for how we spend time together this
fall? (Henry, don’t destroy the couch.) I was like: I need to gure something out starting
right now because there’s no way that I’m going to be able to like run my business and
educate my kids and survive. (Nice one!)
Voice over: Jocelyn Dehaas is one of millions of parents in the US trying to solve what
feels impossible right now.
Jocelyn Dehaas: Thanks bud.
Voice over: What the hell do you do about school in a pandemic? There are a lot of
orders. Add in the stress of trying to save their restaurant during covid, they lost all their
catering gigs for the year and had to lay o 90% of their sta .
Jocelyn Dehaas: Catering, catering: gone. Party here: gone, gone.
What are the other things that happen at school that you would like to keep as a part of
the things that we do in our time together?
Voice over: So, when she found out her kids’ school would be remote again this fall, she
took matters into her own hands, joining forces with three other families to form a learning
pod.
Jocelyn Dehaas: The goal is not to keep everybody at a distance from each other but,
like sharing spaces is going to be important to what we're doing. Yeah because we can. It
is pure survival. There is no way. Our families don’t live here, like, if our business fails,
everything fails.
Sociologist: All across the nation, parents are very scared.
Voice over: NYU sociology professor Dr L’Heureux Lewis-McCoy has been watching
panicked families scramble for solutions.
Sociologist: There is a lot of confusion and I’ve seen a lot of parents respond to that
uncertainty by creating pandemic pods.
Voice over: Facebook groups have popped up. Parents are taking turns teaching each
other’s kids. Families who are able to a ord it are hiring tutors and specialists and renting
spaces.
Sociologist: As di erent families are trying to gure out how to create stable
environments, the ones who have the most money and the most resources aren’t just
creating a stable environment, they’re supercharging their child’s education. Some
families aren’t looking for a life-raft, they’re actually o on speed boats.
Voice over: De Haas’s pod will cost her around ten thousand dollars for the year, which
she says is a stretch for her family. Some pods could cost as much as 40,000 dollars per
kid. Families who can’t a ord pods at all still have to face the same problem.
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