College Station Taekwondo business offering learning pods for online students

COLLEGE STATION, Texas (KBTX) - As a new school year nears with a global pandemic remaining, parents are facing some tough choices. Parents are dealing with options of sending kids back for in-person instruction or looking at online options. For parents who have to work during the day, that decision comes with extra challenges.

Infinity Taekwondo is looking at meeting those needs with a new program.

“So the conversation kind of got started with what we can do for the community in this new world we’re living in basically,” said Brandan Rhoades, the Owner and Instructor of Infinity Taekwondo in College Station. “What can we provide to help kids have some sense of normalcy while still keeping them safe?”

Starting next week his martial arts studio will be a new school hosting kids who are taking their lessons online with a learning pod. They’ll be supervised at the studio all day and also get instruction in the martial art.

”We know parents still have to work in most cases so our goal with it is to provide that opportunity to those parents that still have to work so they can go to work and not have to worry about their kids’ safety being in that large school district population,” said Rhoades.

Jennifer Ruiz and other parents are still looking at their back to school plans. Her kids plan to learn from home for now but she’s glad to hear about new flexible options.

”We’re just waiting to see how it goes and then if it you know it’s better then I’m all for sending them. I just right now I just want to be safe and send them you know, have online,” said Ruiz.

Other parents like Clarisa Ruiz of College Station have made the choice to have their kids return to in-person learning for now.

“This was a really tough decision to make, but I mean unfortunately not everybody does have you know someone to take care of them or where they could go so we do have to kind of take that into consideration. And I mean I have to go back to work and I really do have to send mine back and it’s kind of scary,” said Clarisa.

The cost for the program at Infinity Taekwondo is expected to be about $100 a week. They are focusing on students who are signed up for online learning at International Leadership of Texas and College Station ISD.

”We’re going to allow any school district that is compatible with that online model to participate,” said Rhoades. “We kind of talked to some of our parents and it was actually one of our parent’s ideas to come up with the learning pods.”

Enrollment will be limited to 18 students for social distancing and safety purposes. Your child does not need any Taekwondo experience to learn there. Rhoades said they are encouraging new students to the sport.

We have more information on the learning pod program here.

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