Viens Takes the Lead on Educational Outreach

Resident Diana Viens is being proactive about educating her two daughters this fall. The full-time working mom started a Facebook group dedicated to sharing educational resources amongst par-ents and educators. The group, “MA Parents Seeking Pods, Teachers, and Tutors,” was created to collaborate and connect like-minded parents who want to their children to learn in the same manner. With 4,000 group members in just three weeks, Viens has already received a lot of positive feed-back.

“This is a private group for Massachusetts parents seeking to find educators to teach their children in the fall, learn about available resources, and form small groups/learning pods for educator-led learning grounded in the state’s curriculum/standards,” said Viens. “Whether you require virtual or in-person instruction or are simply seeking other parents from your city/town looking to start the discussion about what’s possible, I’m hoping members will be able to find answers in the group. With so little time and so much uncertainty, this group was created specifically to enable Massachusetts parents to plan for alternative schooling and have an opportunity to assure a safe and con-sistent upcoming school year.”

Viens is currently in the process of forming a first grade group for her six-year-old daughter and a fourth grade group for nine-year-old daughter, both which will start on the original school start date instead of the new delayed start date on September 16th. While both groups will be conducted remotely, she hopes to have social time once a week, following socially distant protocols. The girls attended a variety of virtual camps all summer long, including cooking classes, games and commu-nity building, art camp, incredible inventors camp, and a short-film making course.

Opting out of the hybrid school schedule that is supposed to start this fall, Viens doesn’t feel like being in a classroom is worth the risk.

“I think schools are great places and I hope we will be back in the classroom again, but I need con-sistency and I don’t want my kids to get pulled out of school for two weeks if someone gets sick. It’s not worth the risk. It’s not like the institute is going away but I think we can have some lessons learned and we have to have structures in place. I really do have the most respect for educational institutions.”

For more information, go to the Facebook group ‘MA Parents Seeking Pods, Teachers, and Tutors.’