TEQUESTA, Fla. — There is a sect of parents who now say they don't feel comfortable sending their kids to school in the fall, so they're banding together to tackle child care and education in the comfort and safety of their homes.
"I never thought I would be doing this," Remy Torsiello, a mother of two boys in Jupiter, said.
She said her youngest son, a pre-schooler, is at a higher risk of complications. Her oldest son, 7, attend a local public elementary school.
"In order to keep my youngest safe, I need to have him home as well," said Torsiello, who posted to local mom Facebook groups in search of help in creating a home-school network with like-minded families. She also mentioned splitting the cost of a tutor among several friends.
"One of my best friends, she has a newborn and her son is in my oldest son's class, so she is concerned about the older kids bringing something home," Torsiello said.
Much like Torsiello and so many other parents, another mother, Sarah Weinstein, is also trying to balance safety, child care and education during a pandemic.
"We were mostly concerned about the exposure to germs, with social distancing, the amount of kids in public schools, the sanitizing," she said. "I’m sure everyone will do a great job. We have to be extra cautious, because we have an elderly person in our household, who is on oxygen at night."
Weinstein decided to take a tour of the Harvey Academy in Tequesta, noting the struggles she faced at home this spring.
"I would like to do more work from home, which is impossible to do with a 5-year-old and a 1-year- old," Weinstein said.
These two mothers both agreed it's a short-term solution with the goal of traditional school again one day.
"If you would've told this to me, even in like January, there's no way," Torsiello said. "I would think, 'No, sorry, I work, this isn't going to be something that makes sense for us.' But the world -- 2020 -- has just gotten insane, so this is where I'm at now and a lot of my friends are the same way."