Hey, Ana Romero here!
… and I’m calling dibs on this week’s issue! No take-backs!
Alright now, let’s picture yourself grocery shopping. Walk into a Costco and you'll find 3,700 products. Walk into a Trader Joe's and you'll find about 4,000 fewer. Trader Joe's does roughly twice the revenue per square foot.
More is not always more. Texas school districts launching virtual programs under SB 569 haven't figured that out yet. The first question every district asks me is some version of: "How big is the course catalog?"
And every time, I have to redirect.
The families who left for homeschool programs weren't shopping for more course options. They left because their kid's anxiety wasn't being taken seriously, or because the schedule didn't bend, or because nobody ever called them back.
Here’s what’s on the dashboard this week:
Today’s Deep Dive: 3 reasons why families leave
Reading Rainbow: Green savings, AI drama, and reading tea
From Our Desk: Where to find us in spring!
Watch of the Week: A knight, a squire, and your lesson plan
Three reasons families leave traditional schools
"A family that left because their kid was struggling with anxiety is not coming back for AP Environmental Science."
I say some version of that line in almost every conversation I have with Texas districts building new virtual programs under SB 569. The reasons they left in the first place? None of them show up in a course catalog.
Here's what I've actually seen, working with virtual and homeschool families across the country, on why families leave traditional schools:
Schedule conflicts. Student athletes logging into class between 2–5 PM practices. Aspiring actors cramming a full week of coursework into Sunday morning before a shoot. These families need a program that works around their student's life, full stop.
Mental health. A significant chunk of families pulling their kids from traditional schools are doing it because their student is managing anxiety or depression. They're not shopping for more rigor—they need a setup where their kid can actually breathe.
Unmet learning needs. Families of students with IEPs spent years advocating through the right channels. Eventually, they stopped waiting and left. These families want a program that treats their student like a person, not a file number.
By the time a family is researching virtual programs, the course catalog is pretty far down their list. What they actually want to know is whether someone will pick up the phone, whether the schedule bends, and whether their student is going to be okay.
The districts growing their virtual programs figured that out early. There's a lot more on what they're doing differently—and what it takes to build a program families actually tell their neighbors about.
We went deeper on all of it—what families want, what good programs do differently, and why catalog size is a red herring.
Turns out rigor alone doesn't cut it: Public school enrollment has dropped by nearly two million students since 2020, and a new piece in The 74 argues that even when teachers are getting stronger and curriculum is getting more rigorous, the daily experience of learning has barely changed in 100 years.
Solar panels is the planet-saving budget hack: School districts across the country are banking real savings by going green—Warren County, Kentucky alone cut more than $2 million in utility costs after retrofitting five schools with solar panels—which means more money for teachers, books, and things that are actually about education.
The secret to getting kids to read: let them care about it: TEACH Magazine makes the case that the single most powerful reading tool a teacher has isn't a curriculum, a program, or a leveled library, but whether the student actually gives a rip about what's in front of them. (Revolutionary. Groundbreaking. Obvious in hindsight.)
NYC schools: we made up our own AI rules, no big deal: While New York City's Education Department took its time releasing official AI guidance, some schools built their own comprehensive policies from scratch: A wild DIY experiment that ended with the city finally dropping preliminary guidelines, which somehow raised more questions than they answered.
Are you traveling this month? We are! Reach out to [email protected] if you’ll be at any of these conferences:
GSSA Spring Bootstrap Conference in Savannah, GA, April 15-16
OAASFEP 2026 Federal Programs Spring Conference in Columbus, OH, April 15-17
TexasTech and Learning (Region 4) in Houston, TX, April 17
RTM, NSF in St. Louis, MO, April 19-21,
WABE 2026 Annual Conference in Yakima, WA, April 23-26
K12 Collaborative, Spring Summit 2026 in Naperville, IL, April 29
MAEO Spring Conference in Traverse City, MI, April 29-May 1
CCEA Plus in Los Angeles, CA, April 30-May 3
Our pick of the week: A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms
Why We’re Obsessed: If you've ever tried to explain to a teenager why effort and integrity matter even when the odds are completely stacked against you, congratulations! HBO just made your lesson plan. This Game of Thrones prequel follows Ser Duncan the Tall and his squire Egg bumbling their way through a medieval world that has absolutely no interest in rewarding them, and somehow it's the most charming, human thing on television right now.
Recommended lesson integration:
Introduction to medieval history and feudal society: Knights, lords, tournaments, and the complicated web of who owes loyalty to whom—use the show as an entry point before students encounter it on a test and pretend they knew all along.
Power, class, and who gets to make the rules: Dunk is a hedge knight with no family name, which means the entire social structure is designed to work against him. Good fodder for discussions about fairness, systemic barriers, and how the rules themselves can be the problem.
Character development and the antihero: Egg is literally a prince disguised as a commoner, and the tension between who he is and who he's pretending to be is a great way to teach how authors build complex characters over time.
Ethics and moral reasoning under pressure: Almost every major decision in the show comes down to "what's right" versus "what's safe," which is basically a philosophy class with better costumes. Pair with any ethics unit and let the debate begin.
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