You are not dropping them off.
This is a co-op. It asks something of you, and it gives more back.
Abiding Way is a parent-participation co-op, which means there is no staff to hand your children to. Every mother takes a part: teaching a subject, assisting in a room, holding babies in the nursery, setting out lunch, running the music for assembly.
It is real work. It is also the reason the co-op costs what it costs, and the reason it feels like ours rather than a service we bought.
The commitment, plainly.
Be there
Wednesdays, September through May. Consistency is most of what makes a co-op work.
Take a role
One teaching or supporting role each term, matched to what you can genuinely carry this year.
Prepare
Read ahead, gather what your lesson needs, and come ready. Short lessons only work when they are prepared.
Clear a background check
Every adult who serves is checked. It is a small cost and a plain kindness to every family here.
Mother culture.
Mason wrote about mother culture — the idea that a mother must keep her own mind fed if she is to feed anyone else’s. It is easy to say and hard to do in a season of small children.
A co-op helps almost by accident. You will read Shakespeare because you are teaching it. You will learn a composer because you are introducing him. You will spend a Wednesday among women who understand why a morning can be ruined by a bad reading and saved by a good one.
Most mothers tell us this is the part they did not expect.
Mothers, together.The sixth commitment