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USA TODAY SPECIAL EDITION
EDUCATION
Zutor Ashley Bonzell
Zutor Christopher Levenberg
JENNIFER SILVERSTEIN; PROVIDED BY CHRISTOPHER LEVENBERG; GETTY IMAGES
Rise of the Zutor How one mom is making remote learning a whole lot easier By Sarah Sekula
I
N MANY WAYS, ELYSSA Katz is
a typical working mom in the pandemic era, balancing her professional commitments with the care and remote schooling of three young children. “Like most families, we were
under enormous stress when we had to navigate remote learning and take on the role as teacher,” says Katz, whose kids are 3, 6 and 8 years old. “Don’t get me wrong, the teachers and schools did the best they could with the amount of time they were given, but it was only natural that the pressure was on parents to transition their kids to this new world
of virtual learning.” Each night, she says, she would fall asleep in her Santa Monica, Calif., home brainstorming ways to reduce the mounting household stress. In May, after realizing she was completely burned out on distance learning, she CONTINUED
