Afford Anything - PSA Thursday - Get Ready for a School Year Like No Other with Mandy Bert and Rob Phelan

Episode Date: August 6, 2020

Do you have school-age children? If so, then brace yourself for a school year like no other. This year, some children will return to school five days a week. Others will learn from home five days a week, and yet others will experience a hybrid of the two. You and your kids may face wildly different schedules and challenges than anything you've encountered before. How can you cope with this? Mandy Bert and Rob Phelan, who both work as teachers and are on the K-12 Education Team at the ChooseFI International Foundation, join us to share tips to help your children - and you! - survive the school year. For more information, visit the show notes at https://affordanything.com/psathursday Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to PSA Thursday. This is a special weekly bonus segment of the Afford Anything podcast in which we talk about how to handle money, work, and life in the context of a pandemic. PSA Thursday episodes are different from our normal shows. They are much shorter. They don't have intro music or outro music or sound effects. We intentionally keep them ad-free. These are topical episodes in which in every episode we focus on one aspect of surviving the year 2020 and deep dive into that. In previous PSA Thursday episodes, we've talked about the CARES Act and how it affects student loans. We've talked about finding alternatives to PPP funding for those of you who are small business owners and looking for more funds to keep yourself afloat. We've talked

about how landlords can communicate with tenants about financial hardships that the tenants might be facing. So all of that is in our PSA Thursday archives. You can find those archives at afford anything.com slash PSA Thursday. In today's episode, we're going to be talking to Mandy Burr and Rob Phelan. Mandy and Rob are both educators. Mandy is a middle school teacher. Rob is a high school teacher. And they both work with the ChooseFI Foundation, which is a 501C3 nonprofit foundation. I serve on the board of directors of this foundation. This is a nonprofit organization that is dedicated towards bringing the message of financial independence and personal finance to underserved communities.

Mandy and Rob have been building out material for the foundation that helps both parents and teachers, educators, learn about how to bring the principles of financial independence and personal finance into the classroom. In today's episode, they will be sharing tips for parents who are trying to figure out how to manage life in the fall. Some of you have kids who are going back to school five days a week. Others have kids who are learning from home five days a week. And yet others have kids who are doing a hybrid of the two going to school for a few days, learning from home for a few days. There are a lot of different situations that people are finding themselves in that parents and families are finding themselves in.

And so I invited Mandy and Rob to come onto the show to give tips and advice to parents on how they can help support their children academically, emotionally, socially as the school year begins this fall. So how do we manage back to school fall 2020? To answer that, here's Mandy and Rob. Hi, Mandy and Rob. Hey, Paula. How's it going? Excellent. How are you? I'm doing very well. My name is Rob Feeleyn, and I'm joined here by Mandy Bert, who's also in the Chusify International Foundation curriculum writing team. So Mandy, do you want to introduce yourself? Yeah, my name is Mandy Burt, and I am a middle school teacher outside of Chicago. And as Rob said, I'm part of the foundation team as well, trying to offer that middle school perspective to the team.

And Mandy, how long have you been teaching middle school? I just wrapped up my 12th year teaching. I have a background in English, but I've always had an interest in personal finance. So it was really fun and exciting opportunity for me to see how we could kind of blend the two. with some of the foundation work that's been happening. Rob, introduce yourself. Okay, so yeah, my name is Rob. I'm a high school math and personal finance teacher. Math and physical education by degree,

and then personal finance is mostly self-taught, but I got asked by my school to take on that role of helping students learn more about their money alongside with math in my school. And I've been teaching now for seven years, and it has been so fun. I love working with kids, especially when it comes to personal finance.

That is a true passion for me and helping kids to get better with their money. And by extension, helping families and communities get better with their money is just a great goal. It's what drew me to the Chusify project as well. And alongside with Mandy and another team member, Danny, we were able to come up with a personal finance curriculum. And I know we're going to talk a lot about that very soon, but that is a really cool passion project that all of us are working on here. And I know you are part of this foundation board as well that's helping make this possible. So thank you so much for being a part of that. Of course.

And thanks to both of you for the work that you're doing. But before we're all thanking each other, let's go to the topic at hand. So the reason that I invited you on the show today is because there are people who are listening to this episode. Some people are parents whose children will be going back to school five days a week. Some are parents whose children will be going back to school a couple of days a week. and some are parents whose children are not going back to school at all when the fall starts. So I'd like to get the perspective of teachers and educators on how parents, in all three of those situations, can ease the transition or manage the not transition.

It's so hard. And let's just acknowledge that first that there was no, for any school district out there, there is no easy or like obvious solution to this problem that kind of fixes everything that's out there. I think no matter what your school looks like in the fall, it's probably different to what it looked like at any other point unless you homeschooled full time already. So it's definitely a new challenge and it's been so great to see parents, teachers, administration, communities rising up to work together to find solutions. So kudos to everyone out there who is working to make this stuff better.

But yes, it is definitely a challenge. and the teacher side is going to be particularly interesting because I still don't know what I'm doing in the fall. My school district hasn't told us yet whether we are going to be full-time face-to-face in a hybrid model or doing completely virtual instruction. We'll find out about two weeks before school starts. Wow. It's going to be a race once we get there. And Mandy, do you know if you'll be physically going back to the classroom in the fall? Yeah, that's a question on, I think, every teacher's mind.

So we have a current proposal that actually offers our classroom. community some different options. And we are currently trying to navigate what that might look like from the student side and from the teacher side. It looks like I will be going back five days a week as a teacher. But our students will likely be choosing from either a hybrid model or our online academy that we're offering. Wow. And where are each of you based? Mandy, you're outside Chicago, you said? Chicago suburbs, yep. Nice. And I'm Frederick Maryland. All right. So let's talk about each of the three situations that the parents who are listening to this might find themselves in, their children staying at home and needing to homeschool their children in the fall,

sending their kids back to school with a hybrid model in the fall, or sending their kids back to school full-time in the fall. Let's just tackle each one separately. And let's start with, I guess let's start with perhaps the most unprecedented of the models, which is that hybrid model, A parent who's sending their child back to school two days a week or three days a week, how can the parent help their kid stay safe? How can they adjust? And I mean, I realize I'm asking a very broad question because there are so many facets to this in terms of the child adjusting to the new situation, but also the parent adjusting their work schedule. I mean, there's no blueprint for this. Now it's like you said, the number of permutations goes up when you think about, is there a parent at home? Is there a parent at home? are two parents at home? Are there two parents working? What does that look like? Are there older siblings? Are they younger siblings? Are we talking elementary? Are we talking middle or high school? The demand on the family is going to be so different depending on what the situation

looks like. I think the best thing that we can talk about is the schedule that people are setting themselves up for and the way they approach this with a positive mindset because it's very easy to drop into, well, this is happening to me. This is terrible. And I'm just going to like cross my arms and not do anything about it. I think the people who say, okay, this is the situation. It's a tough situation, but we're going to make the best out of it. What can we do are going to have the most success moving forward? And so what can they do? How do you make the best of it? To piggyback off of Rob's comment, I think one of the most important things, and the best pieces of advice that teachers give is students thrive on routine. And I know if I had any of my middle

schoolers listening to this, they'd be rolling their eyes right now because kids want to act like they love to be spontaneous and fun, but really it is all about routine. And even if they're maybe not thrilled with the routine all of the time, I think it's human nature to find comfort in that. So like Rob said, setting up a schedule, I think the very first thing that you need to know is every hybrid model that I've seen proposed for the suburbs where I live is different. So, So it's good to engage in community conversation, but you want to make sure that you're not comparing apples and oranges or apples and astronauts. Some of these are so different.

So make sure that you're really dialed into what your school community is doing. And I would also say if you see something that seems like it's going to work for another community, don't be afraid to communicate that as well. In teaching, we always say it's like beg, borrow steel. there are no new ideas. So I think a lot of school communities at the administrative level are already in dialogue with one another. But don't be afraid as parents to have conversations across the community, but make sure that you are setting yourself up when the cards all fall. Make sure you're setting yourself up for what you're actually being presented with.

What are some examples of that best practices that have worked in at least some communities that help students create a routine in a situation where normal routines are broken. I mean, with a hybrid model in particular, the school week is still five days a week, but you're only physically there on a limited number of those days. And then you're at home on a different number of those days. I mean, that inherently is a disruption in the routine. I think going back to the schedule idea, like, we're like actually making a physical schedule. and I see parents do this at home during the summer.

My sister-in-law loves doing this with her kids during the summer. She makes a time-block schedule for each day of the week, the activities they're going to do, when they're going to do them, all the way down to when they're going to eat lunch, what the menu for lunch is that day. The kids are able to look at it and they know what's coming next and when it's supposed to come. So a big issue that a lot of parents and especially the students are going to feel

is that lack of structure when they are either at home or if they're doing full-time homeschool, that they're not going to have somebody always over their shoulder kind of saying, okay, this is what's coming next. So by creating that schedule and like negotiate it with your kids, like say, okay, when is school time going to happen? If it's like what my school looked like in the spring, it was very unstructured.

It was basically the kids had a week to complete the work. They didn't have to be on live calls at any point. They didn't have to have work in by a certain time during the week. Basically everything was due by midnight on Friday. So my kids struggled a lot if they didn't come up with a routine for themselves. They would just end up procrastinating, nothing got done, and then they would all let it pile up. So the ones who were successful were the ones who were saying, okay, you know what, I'm still setting my alarm. I'm getting up at this time.

I have breakfast. Maybe I watch TV for a while or I get straight on my laptop and I check in with what the new work is for the day. I spend an hour working and then I get a break and I go do some physical activity. You can really script out what a day is going to look like. and inviting your kids to be a part of that process is going to be really important because as teachers, we know that this is important that you invite the kids to be part of the classroom expectations and routines. And if you can get that buy in, that ownership from them, they're much more likely to follow it out of their own initiative rather than needing you to kind

of remind them constantly, okay, get back to work, go do what you're supposed to be doing, sort of thing. And I would say, in addition to that, it's necessary for everyone to understand that what happened in the spring is certainly not what's going to happen in the fall. And what I mean by that is in education, we love to come up with different terms that I think sound like synonyms to the community. But we're talking about remote learning versus e-learning. And this idea of what we're moving towards in the fall, whether you're in the hybrid model or your e-learning all the time, there's going to be a lot more structure and guidance in place.

it does, of course, depend on your state and your school district. So, like, even when I hear Rob's description of how he set up the spring, that was really different than my experience. So I think in addition to figuring out a schedule that works for your family, reach out to your school district and reach out to individual teachers that your kids have, or I'm positive they will reach out to you. But you'll find out, is learning synchronous or asynchronous? Are my kids watching videos or are they doing Zoom or Google Meet? And I think you're going to find that there's going to be a lot more structure and a lot more face-to-face classroom experiences in the fall. I think particularly the younger age groups,

for sure. I know at the high school level, we are struggling with the idea that a lot of high school junior, seniors who are able to work are actually frontline workers during this time because they're in those grocery store jobs or in the fast food jobs that are still open. And some of them have taken on part of the financial responsibility in the household because an adult lost their job in the house. If that's your situation as well, please make sure you are talking to your school and being very transparent about what your needs are and seeing, will the school be flexible and work with you?

Because I know in my school's case, like they are already making plans for what happens if a kid is not available from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. when school typically happens, what are we going to do? and they're trying to come up with solutions for that. Absolutely. I think the one thing that we can probably stress throughout this conversation is that schools are trying to be as receptive as possible to teachers, to parents, to students. So when you raise points like what Rob mentioned, I've seen huge revisions in our own model and even the conversations that we're having just because if you've never been in a situation like this, you obviously can't anticipate all of the different circumstances that people find themselves in. I know I had parents in the spring continue to say, well, I don't want to bother you. I don't want to send an email, but send the email, put in the phone call. The more communication that can take place before the school year officially starts, I think the more we can make sure that we're meeting everybody's needs. What are some of the more common issues that you hear from parents?

It ranges. So I'm in a rural school district, and the most obvious ones typically come up are very limited access to internet, if any at all. So I know our school had to give out over a thousand hotspots, or our school district, I should say, not my school itself, but our district had to give over a thousand hotspots to families just so that they could access the internet using school-provided laptops. So like it wasn't even the fact that the school was able to provide a laptop to every student. They also have to try and provide internet access. And even in that situation, sometimes they were just so remote. They just couldn't get them to work. And the schools ended up kind of leaving their Wi-Fi turned on and asking parents, you know, park in the parking lot. access the internet for an hour, get your work turned in, and then head home again. Like it was a Band-Aid solution, but there were solutions out there. But that was definitely up there. And then the one where parents were working and older siblings were minding younger siblings. So I was working with high school students.

So that was typically an issue I was facing was students who were basically in charge of their family during the day while parents worked and then maybe had a part-time job themselves. And they just were struggling to find time to actually devote to their education. and it just was such a quick rug pulled out from under you that families didn't have a chance to really prepare what they were going to do in the situation. So hopefully that will look different this fall. What is really important that we've seen as a country is all the different services that schools provide that maybe as a broader community we didn't acknowledge. But I know in addition to the hotspots that you mentioned, Rob, in addition to the pandemic being like nothing we've ever experienced, the amount of jobs. job loss, right? And the economic hardship that people were confronted with, our school district

and school districts everywhere really had to kind of pivot and look at what do we do for our free and reduced program. So how do we provide meals to families in need? And how do we push that out to people who maybe weren't part of those programs initially, but are experiencing some hardships. So I know that is something that a lot of districts have tried to continue over the summer. And I think that what you're going to start to see with this transition back to school is, in addition to focusing on the academics, there's going to be a big push to support the social emotional needs of these kiddos and making sure that every family's basic needs are met as much as we're able to do that before we can even go back and try to add the academic piece on top of it.

With regard to the emotional piece or the social piece of going to school, certainly the classroom and the playground provide a lot of social interaction for children. How can parents, particularly those who may have only children or who may live in a secluded area where they don't have a lot of neighbors, how can they provide for the social well-being of their child? We actually had the opportunity as part of the foundation to talk with a trauma specialist who really looks at that aspect when he works with students in schools. Like how can we support kids socially and emotionally? The first thing that we kind of all have to do as parents is be willing to communicate. And I would imagine many, many schools will be reaching out and maybe we'll be asking for information

that you don't normally share. Like, what is your family set up? Do you have internet? Things like that, like how many kids are in the home? But also to convey that, because I think the school is really great. I know our counseling staff and our social work staff is really great about trying to pair kids up who have similar interests, who maybe, like, they only connect through school. So now it's looking at, like, well, can we, so our district actually opened up Google

meet for middle schoolers, which is like the new Google Hangouts so that kids were able to have conversations. And during the strict lockdown, you know, when no one was really interacting with anyone outside the home, they decided that that benefit, you know, talking to kids about how do you be a good digital citizen, making sure that you're respectful, but also how can we foster these little online communities? And I just think if there was a generation for this to happen to. This is the generation that has some of the skill set to navigate that because so many of them have online communities, older kids, middle school and high school kids. I think they already use social media, they use email, and they know how to interact

digitally. I have a preschooler at home. He's been doing Zoom with like his little neighborhood buddy. And it's a lot because their attention span is three seconds. But so a lot of times he and little buddy will sit and color together. And they kind of talk to each other on the screen, but then they're in their coloring books. So they're getting some socialization. It's the best description I've heard came from our governor. And he said, brace yourselves for a school year like no other. With social distancing being a requirement in most schools, all schools, and masks being required in many schools, you're not going to see that same level of social interaction that you've seen. Kids are so resilient and they adapt. And I think teachers are going to work really

hard. I know I've spent a great deal of time thinking about, okay, if we can't all push our desks together and do a debate, how can I use Zoom or a back channel where they can communicate with each other? You know, how can we do it that way in person? So we're together, but we're distant. And I think we're going to see a lot of innovation and creativity, but we're not going to get it all right all the time. have a start. I think the spring gave us a running start to capitalize on. Yeah, I totally agree with that. I think we're seeing particularly in outdoor activities that there has been a small resurgence in things that can be done and a lot of businesses are pivoting and what they provide

so that you can provide some sort of experience for kids in a safe environment. So whether that's through masks or being outdoors and more than six feet apart, look for things like that would be my best advice if you feel comfortable and safe doing so. You're going to try and replace as much of the social interaction as you can at home. And I know on the teacher side, like Mandy said, look, we are consciously thinking about, like, how are we going to replace the classroom environment if we are in a virtual setting?

So how are we going to get kids to interact with each other? How are we going to get them to feel welcome in the room? How are they going to even get to know each other? It's not even like the spring where we got sent home and we all knew the faces of the people who were in the room with us. You're now going to start in new classes where you may not even know the other people in the class and you're going to do it all virtually.

So I think there's going to be a huge effort to try and get kids to connect with each other in as many different ways as possible. And as Mandy said, like, innovation is going to be so big at this time. I think it typically is in times like this when things get tough, the game changes, the innovators come out. And I think something else to communicate to parents is something that teachers are really cognizant of. And I think have been spending some time having some conversations. I know our district offered us some professional. Development Planning Time, where we came together over Zoom, but we know that parents have varying degrees of comfort with screen time. And the situation that we're in has kind of forced us all

to rely on technology, probably more than we ever have. But I think what we'll also see in the fall is, yes, we'll see technology. But I think we'll see ways that technology gets kids out into their own backyards or in their homes. Like I know a team of teachers that I work with is planning a scavenger hunt. So of course, we'd have to share that through technology. But kids can either print it out and work on a paper copy or they can refer back to their devices on occasion. But it's really about getting out of your space out of your desk and move around and interact.

And I think that if you are a parent and you felt like, wow, my kid is just in front of a screen all the time, we're going to see teachers finding ways to balance that better in the fall. There are some parents who are listening to this who have kids across a wide age span. So a parent might have one child who's a 10th grader, one child who's a seventh grader, and one child who's maybe a third grader or a second grader. They may be in three different schools, and each of those schools might have a different plan. What tips do you have for parents when they're balancing multiple children who go to different schools that have different types of plans, different types of forms of communication? Like when they're sort of managing what seems to be a unique situation multiplied by two or three or four or five?

Yeah, give yourself a break, first of all. It's going to be ugly no matter what way you approach it. But it sort of reminds me, as you were saying that, it reminds me of talking to someone. someone who is trying to get out of debt for the very first time. They're just coming across personal finance and they just feel like that there is money like slipping away in all directions and they have no control. And what would you, what would you prescribe for them? You would say, okay, let's find out. Let's get everything down that is a cost. Let's track all of your income and all your expenses. That's typically where most of us start when we're, you know, helping someone

control their finances. Same thing here. Get everything down like that is going to be an expectation. try and rank them in terms of what's high priority, what's mid priority, what's low priority. Going back to the schedule again, can you find ways to fit all of these different activities into your schedule? Can you be flexible? Can kids help each other out? So can the high schooler help the elementary schooler with their stuff? And then, you know, maybe the middle schooler keeps the elementary school kid busy while the high school one does his work. Like there's so many different nuances to what you could do here. I've seen a lot of families, particularly in my community, they're reaching out on

Facebook and they're saying, okay, you know, our school is potentially going to do this. How many of you are in the same situation with work? And could we maybe form some sort of co-op where one day will be flexible and you'll mind a small group of kids and then we'll rotate that through a, like, through the community. And they're keeping like small pods of people together, which it's not the best because you are then mixing with other kids. But at the same time, they're they're trying to commit to saying, okay, this is going to be our pot of people that we're not going to mix to others because we need it to make. We need this to work. to make our lives possible.

And I think something else to consider as difficult of a situation as it is, if you have three kids or four kids in different school buildings, is oftentimes, though not always, school districts are K-12. And if that's the case, I think you can expect to see plans that accommodate families. Like I know we talked about this hybrid model, and a lot of times it's by last name, but I know that I've heard some school saying, but also if that doesn't work for your family, you know, you could reach out to us if you, if you are in an exceptional situation where you need your kids to attend on alternate days. Rob's point about you reach out to

your community, see what other families are doing, what situations are they in. There's no harm in emailing a guidance counselor or a school principal or a teacher, even last year's teacher, if parents had a point person that they reached out to last year, I think you could always say, like, here's my situation. What do you recommend? If that person you connect with doesn't have advice, they can connect you with someone that might give you something a little more tailored for your situation. Yeah, two things struck me as you were talking. One was the thought of, you know, sometimes parents will send their child to public school for elementary school and then switch them into private school at the middle school or high school level. And so then you would sort of end up

in the situation where the parent is balancing just children in different setups. And similarly with the last name, you know, you might have a blended family with stepchildren or children who are half-siblings in which maybe your children have different last names. So yeah, the more we think through this, the more we talk through this, the more permutations and unique situations seem to unfold. What can parents do if they do reach out to their district, their teachers, their principal, and they don't feel as though the administrators are working with them very well? I would say talking to the teacher is going to be your first protocol that they should be the one who is going to be your point person. They should be the one who is ready to work with you most because

they know your kid. They know you potentially. If you don't feel like you're getting the support from your teacher, reach out to their administrator or if there's a department chair, I would go there next. And if, you know, it's, your entire school is not giving you what you need, then, you know, keep going. Like, you should always advocate for your own child and for your own family. And, you know, you can always go to a central office for that school district, a superintendent. Like, there's multiple levels that you can go to if you feel like your needs aren't being addressed.

But please, please start with a teacher. As a teacher, it's very frustrating when a parent goes over my head before they even talk to me and I'm like, I could have helped you solve that problem. So let them know what you're feeling, what your situation is. Try and be proactive about it as best you can. So don't wait until the work is piled a mile high and your kid is having a meltdown at home before you let the teacher know that, oh, by the way, like, we've got a really tough situation at home. Like, the earlier you reach out and let the teacher know about these things, the more flexible they can be in how they approach it. They can give you different solutions. They can offer you ideas for what you can try at

home. Like there's a lot we can do proactively. There's less we can do reactively. I think also advice that has been circulated widely among teachers is also something that we should be telling families. I think our instinct right now is to panic. We want to know what next month will look like so we can have everything. We want to make our schedules. We want to color code. We want to do all of that. And it's really understandable. If you are in a position right now where you feel like things maybe aren't being communicated. There are so many moving pieces at district levels right now and at state levels. I think the state of Illinois revises their guidelines constantly.

And now that we're sort of seeing a spike again in our state, now it's kind of like, well, are we going to scrap the whole thing? And is everybody going to be going remote? There's just so many questions and the situation is so fluid that you might feel like, hey, I'm asking a question and I'm not getting an answer, it could very well be that your question is sparking a larger conversation. Of course, during the school year, you know, like Rob said, once we say, ready, set, go, and you know your kiddo's schedule and who their teacher is, you absolutely want to make sure that those lines of communication are open. Another piece of the puzzle

that I think might help families if they feel like they need more support is look at your community and start looking now. Are your public libraries open at all? Are they open virtually? I was talking with Rob earlier about some of the really cool, they used to be subscription-based where you have to log in from the library to get like tutoring support and different scholastic makes a bunch of different programs that are usually membership only. And prior to the pandemic, I would have to go sit in the library and use one of their computers to have access. But since this all happened, they're now pushing it out. You can access it anywhere as long as you type in your library barcode. Now is a great time to get to know your

own community. If you're not already in touch with your public library, and if you are in a position, I know my own school system, there are pockets that are unincorporated. So families may not have library cards due to the way taxes are set up out here. There are still public libraries are serving the greater public. So even if you can't access everything, you can access something. So I think now is also a great time to start thinking about what is my school offer, but what else might be available to my family. And I'll just want to add one last point. Like the priorities that we felt the last couple of years in terms of education, so grades being super important, particularly at the high school level, I have a lot of parents thinking about,

like, well, how will this affect college or my child's opportunity? going forward. Everybody is going to be very aware of what 2019, 20, 21 look like, and there's going to be flexibility moving forward. So I don't think it's wise to put a huge amount of pressure on your children to maintain straight A's. If they are maintaining a healthy work-life balance, if they are being physically active and devoting time to school and trying to keep up with friends or maybe working part-time job, whatever it is, like if they are able to balance all that and stay happy, and your family units, I'm staying solid. Like, you're doing a lot better than most families probably are doing in that current situation.

So just making sure that your outlook and your priorities for what you're expecting out of this school year are in line with, you know, your own values and are realistic for the situation. Well, thank you for spending this time with us. Where can people find you or find out more about some of the work that you've created if people would like to learn more? So we didn't get to talk too much about the work that you suffice doing, but it was such a valuable conversation. I think that was really important. And a lot of parents are having these questions and thoughts. If you are going to be homeschooling, so just say you have taken a decision

to pull your kids out of school and you're going to do homeschooling 100% for this year, and you were looking for resources. Chusify Foundation has created a pre-K through 12 personal finance curriculum. So this is a very detailed curriculum that anybody could pick up, so any parent or teacher could pick up and use to basically teach all the tenants of financial independence to their kids at an age-appropriate level. You are more than welcome to access that. It is totally free. It's provided by the foundation. And that is at choosefi.com forward slash K-12. If you are an adult and you're like, you know what, I've got some time now because I'm doing this homeschooling thing. Maybe I'm going to learn something alongside my kids. We have the adult

version, which is Phi 101. It's a self-paced personal finance curriculum. You could also enroll your older teens in that. If you're like, they've got time, school is not, you know, overtaxing them at the moment or maybe homeschooling is going great. And you want them to learn more about managing their money because I think all of us are realizing how important that is right now. Phi 101 is another excellent resource. And that can be found at choosifyfoundation.org. And if you are a parent who's thinking, you know, I've got some time where I could work

on my own personal finance education, you can check out our Phi 101 course. This is a self-paced personal finance course that's made for adults. It's another Chooseify Foundation product. So it's totally free to do. and you can find that at choosefI.com forward slash FI 101. And we also have some resources that we put together, same location. So we have some resources that were created in the spring, accidental homeschooler. If your kiddo is in a hybrid model or they're doing face-to-face instruction full-time,

but you want them to practice not only financial literacy, but we pulled from all content areas. We created different bingo boards that kids can use from preschool. all the way to 12th grade that gives them some of those hands-on experiences as well as technology-based experiences. And you can also join the conversation if you want support. I know Rob talked a lot about this earlier, but we have an accidental homeschooler group. And then all of the Chesify Facebook groups would be great for people to come join the community and have some conversation and support one another as we navigate the school year. Thank you to both of them for coming on the show. Now, links to everything that they talked about will all be available on our show notes page,

and those show notes are available at afford anything.com slash PSA Thursday. If you would like to subscribe to our show notes, which means that you will get a synopsis of all of our episodes delivered hot and fresh to your inbox so that that way you can quickly search for a guest that may have appeared six months ago on the show that you want to remember who that guest was or remember a thing that they said, if you want a record, of those notes from every episode sent directly to you for free. You can sign up for that on our newsletter page at affordanything.com slash show notes. That's afford anything.com slash show notes. Finally, if you would like to talk about today's episode with other members of the Afford Anything community, you can hang out virtually, remotely, with other people in this community at afford anything.com slash community.

And we do host Zoom calls in which we chat with. one another, people in the community chat with one another about whatever is on their mind, whether it's paying off debt, sending kids back to school, reaching early retirement, anything and everything related to the world of financial independence and personal finance. If you want a community of people that you can connect with about that, afford anything.com slash community is the place to go. Thank you so much for tuning in. My name is Paula Pant.

This is the PSA Thursday segment of the Afford Anything podcast, and I will catch you in the next episode.