From Homeschool to Private School, Navigating Back to School Decisions
Backpacks and big decisions: Should your kids head to private school or stay home for homeschool? A back-to-school guide for parents weighing it all.
What’s New This Week 🎒
Check out our Back to School Series
What We’re Reading This Week 📖
Ridgefield Considers Full-Day Cellphone Ban at High School After Parent Outcry: In Ridgefield (Connecticut), parents, teachers, and school officials are debating implementing a bell-to-bell ban on cellphones in high school, beyond just restricting them during class time. The proposal is driven by concerns over student focus, mental health, and classroom engagement. If a ban is approved, it reflects growing tension around screen time and how tech distracts in school.
“Sesame Street” Releases New Tools for Military Families: Sesame Street for Military Families just launched “Healthy, Happy, Ready”, a free bilingual digital resource to support military kids’ emotional wellness, physical activity, and healthy eating. A cool toolset to add to the arsenal when trying to keep little ones in routine during a lot of moving and change!
‘Bipartisan, common sense, science-based’ - California leads the way in banning ultra-processed school meals: California has passed a law banning ultra-processed foods in school meals (UPFs) and set a statutory definition for what counts as such foods, a strong move backed by science and cross-party political support. This could change what’s served not just in California, but also influence school food policy elsewhere.
Silicon Valley's 'youthquake': In the age of AI, founders aren't waiting to grow up: In 2022, 10% of startup founders in Y Combinator were in their early 20s. Two years later, 30% of Y Combinator's founders were college students or recent graduates. Fueled by AI hype, the ease of vibe coding, and a sense that the clock is ticking, a handful of teens and twenty-somethings are building startups instead of taking the well-trodden path of a college education or a Big Tech job, neither of which offer the ROI or career stability they once did.
How We’re Feeling This Week:
This morning, our school drop-off turned into a mini info session for neighborhood moms. One mom was heading to Starbucks to borrow their Wi-Fi after her Spectrum internet had been down for 24 hours (!). Another was squeezing in a pilates class before work. And a third had just discovered a fitness studio with 40-minute HIIT workouts that start every ten minutes. She goes once a week but has been hoping to bump up to twice per week after settling into the new school routine — obvi hasn’t happened just yet.)
Listening to them, I walked away with three reminders:
How often have I told myself: Once things calm down, then I’ll start X.
The reality is, Y or Z or something else always pops up, and so X gets pushed off until Y or Z is done. I know from past experience that this is surmountable — I just need to make X a habit with repetitive behavior — but evidently this is easier said than done (particularly for workouts) at this phase of my life.A 40-minute workout with rolling start times? Love this idea. Short workouts you can start whenever you arrive feels achievable. Could this flexible, but instructor-led, workout be the key to making #1 can happen? TBD.
I can’t say enough about mom communities. They’ve given me a wealth of hacks, advice, reviews — not to mention natural camaraderie. The seemingly small moments of connection transform into pleasant sparks in my day.
Thanks to all you moms who have shared your wisdom and survival skills. We are all in a better place for it!
Signing off,
Your Team at MomBrains