Curriculum Infrastructure

This post is AI-generated from Episode 15 of my podcast, check it out!

When people hear the word infrastructure, they usually think of buildings, roads, or maybe a tech setup. But in the world of hybrid schooling, infrastructure is so much more. It’s not just the physical pieces (like facilities, insurance, payroll, printers, and compliance paperwork). It’s also the systems that make your school run smoothly—curriculum delivery, communication, staffing, and the partnership you build with families.

Let’s break this down and talk specifically about how infrastructure connects with curriculum and the family partnership in a hybrid model.

What Counts as Infrastructure?

In a hybrid school, infrastructure covers:

• Physical needs: classrooms, printers, facilities, insurance.

• Technology: payroll systems, communication platforms, emails, reminders.

• Staffing and delivery: the actual how of what you teach and how parents engage at home.

It’s the backbone that allows your school to function legally, logistically, and educationally.

Curriculum as Infrastructure

Curriculum is more than just books or lesson plans—it’s tied directly to your school’s vision and mission. The way you decide what to teach and how to divide responsibility between school and home is part of the structure that supports your whole model.

When planning, you need to decide:

• Are you teaching just the skill subjects (reading, writing, math)?

• Are you focusing on content-rich “riches” (history, science, art, music)?

• Or will you attempt both?

Most hybrids I know—including mine, Providence Hybrid Academy—end up doing all of it. But that requires careful planning.

The Challenge of Skill-Based Subjects

Reading, writing, and math are different from subjects like history or art. They build on themselves—if a student misses one step, it’s hard to move forward. That makes them trickier in a two-day-a-week program.

At our school, we asked parents directly if they wanted us to teach reading and math or leave that entirely at home. The overwhelming answer was clear: they wanted teachers to help with skills. Parents didn’t want to shoulder all of reading instruction or early math alone.

So, we kept skill subjects in the program—and figured out ways to make them work in a hybrid model.

Practical Tips for Structuring Curriculum

Here’s what we found works well:

1. Back-to-Back School Days

We held our program on Thursday/Friday (and another group on Monday/Tuesday). Having consecutive days helped teachers build momentum and kept the flow of learning smoother than alternating days.

2. Assign Skill-Based Work at Home

At first, we tried not assigning math or reading at home. That didn’t work very well. So we shifted toward using the same curriculum both at school and home, which made expectations clearer and helped keep progression more uniform.

• Math: We landed on Math-U-See. Its mastery-based, one-topic-a-week format was perfect for hybrids. Everyone knew exactly what to focus on that week, and the video component supported parents.

• Reading: We used All About Reading. Its division between phonics instruction and practice made it easy to teach at school and reinforce at home.

• Spelling/Grammar: We left most of this for parents, though teachers reinforced concepts naturally through writing feedback.

3. Keep Reading-Heavy Subjects Self-Contained at School

For history, science, art, and music, we kept the work in the classroom self-contained. We used living books and handled readings during school time. Parents would add extra reading at home if they wanted, but no one was left trying to guess where to “pick up.”

This approach gave teachers control over pacing while still leaving space for families to enrich learning at home. We gave robust recommendations so that families didn’t have to work from nothing. This seemed to be a good balance.

Communication and Expectations

One of the biggest lessons: you can’t homeschool at school!

As a hybrid leader, you need to set clear expectations for how your program works. That means:

• Communicating upfront which subjects are taught where.

• Requiring families to use certain curricula at home (especially for math and reading).

• Being confident in saying, “This is how our program works.”

Families are signing up for your program because they want structure and support. Clarity helps everyone succeed.

The Role of Assessments

Assessments don’t have to mean standardized tests. In fact, we didn’t use those. Instead, we built in simple, low-stakes ways to measure progress, like:

• Reading a passage aloud.

• Solving a few math problems at grade level.

We did this as part of enrollment (except for kindergartners) and then two or three times a year we would have teachers do an informal check-in assessment. This helped us identify whether students were progressing, struggling, or simply not keeping up with the work at home and communicate with parents early if there were any concerns.

This proactive step kept teachers from being blindsided by major gaps later in the year.

Pulling It All Together

So, what does good hybrid infrastructure look like when it comes to curriculum?

• Use mastery-based, easy-to-divide curricula for skill subjects.

• Require consistency between school and home.

• Keep reading-heavy subjects self-contained at school, with corresponding recommendations for home

• Communicate expectations clearly from the beginning.

• Incorporate simple, proactive assessments.

When you build your program this way, you’re not just picking curriculum—you’re creating the structure that helps your hybrid thrive.

And that’s the point of infrastructure: making sure your systems, delivery, and communication support your mission and allow your school to serve families well.