Black Education Pods

The Problem: Black and Brown children will face unequal access to safe education in the fall, which will widen educational inequality and achievement gap. 

Our Solution: In response to lack of education pods throughout Black and brown neighborhoods, @Black_Education_Matters has teamed up with other educators and started a mutual aid fund to help build and resource Black Ed Pods .

Our mission is to provide safe, inclusive, and accessible learning communities. We will create, resource, and fund developing Black and Brown education pods, as we confront educational injustice by supporting underprivileged communities who seek accessible educational opportunities for this fall and beyond.

What are equity pods?:
Our version of a ‘school’ pod, or ‘learning pod’, but Black Ed Pods, or Equity Pods support and affirm Black and Brown children, in addition to being safe, inclusive, accessible, and affordable.

Black children must have access to safe education spaces in the fall.  

“An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity.”
~ Martin Luther King Jr. 

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As a solution for fall schooling & child care, parents around the country have started organizing “pandemic pods,” or home schooling pods. Where groups of three to 10 students learn together in homes under the care of parents or a hired educator. The problem is pods can be pricey, complicated to organize and self-selecting. Pods will be most popular among families of privilege.

For parents who can organize and afford them, pods seem like an easy choice. But what about the families that can't afford it & do not have access?

We are inspired and motivated by the idea of creating various grass-roots led Black education spaces, for us by us, that exist even after COVID-19, But there is work to be done. 

List of pods we will be supporting coming soon! As of now we are planning on resourcing 10 Equity Pods 

Our Provided Resources:

- Toolkit model of a pod
- Assist in the beginning steps of creating pods
- Locating safe accessible education spaces (city by city)
- Locating BIPOC families & student
- Locating local available educators/ caretakers 
- Funding 
- Educational materials (tips, homeschooling materials, curriculum, etc.)
- PPE (personal protective equipment)
- Connection to other Black pod educators 
- Tech support

As we grapple with the idea of putting our children in unsafe school environments led by unreliable state leadership, we must demand & create accessible educational options for Black students.

Using community aid & organizing we must provide safe childcare options for every neighborhood.

We are fighting for educational equality in a global pandemic, and we need your help. Please donate what ever you can, and share on your networks!

My name is Mx. KT and I am a non-binary Black educator and curriculum developer based in Brooklyn, NYC, the founder of Black Education Matters.

Please let me know if you have any questions, or if you would like to know more about the pods we are supporting! Thank you in advance for your support.

Love,
KT 
(she/they)

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