Hidden Gems: Meet Jade Weatherington

Today we’d like to introduce you to Jade Weatherington.

Hi Jade, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I moved to Georgia in 2014. I needed a fresh start, and I was tired of long cold winters in my hometown of Minnesota. All the teaching jobs I applied for when I made the transition were below my previous wage. However, I needed to work to support myself and my daughter. I was hired by Atlanta Public Schools, but I needed to supplement my income. This is how I started to teach online as a side job. By 2016, I quit my job with Atlanta Public Schools, withdrew my daughter from school to begin homeschooling, and decided that I was going to teach online as my full-time job. Our first year of homeschooling, I was teaching for multiple online tutoring platforms, which allowed us to travel. To date, we have traveled to 20+ countries. When we returned to the states, I was determined to reduce my working hours. At the time, I was teaching on three different platforms and juggling private students. With this decision in mind, I developed my own website and platform.

I stayed on one platform as I continued to develop my own as I was making $10k/month working 10-15 hours/week. This income and reduced working hours allowed me to venture into my desire to expand my platform by hiring teachers and focus on creating products.  As a homeschooling parent, I noticed a lack of educational materials for Black homeschoolers that wanted decolonized history. So, I developed my own homeschool and supplementary workbooks. This idea came to me when looking for material for my daughter’s homeschool education.

She was working on self-publishing her first novel as we took a break to deschool (unlearning what is taught about compulsory education). During this time, I had an increase in interest for my online classes and started consultations for those that wanted to become virtual educators.  What started out as a side job turned into a lucrative business that allows me to work on my projects (products), transition from service to products, and spend more time with my child.

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
I am moving into my thirteen year of teaching online. While it hasn’t been a smooth road, especially with my newest ventures, it has been rewarding. The biggest struggle with managing my business is doing it alone. I have hired people at varying times, but it has been difficult to manage all the parts of the business. Each workbook needs to be fact-checked, edited, formatted, and copyrights must be completed. Marketing to the homeschool community has been an easier task than reaching out to public schools and non-homeschooling families, but it allows me to narrow my focus for now, and I know I can come back to the bigger picture late.  The biggest lessons are that I do need assistance.  Since I have hired two teachers and an assistant, the rough road has evened out.  There’s an Afrikan proverb that I use as reference, “If you want to go fast, go alone.  If you want to go far, go together.”

Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
My business has two components: products and services. On the service side, I teach virtual English Language Arts courses to middle school aged students. I provide consultations to individuals that want to learn how to teach online by providing them with material, mock class training, and overall class presentations with virtual classroom management. On the products side, I currently have three workbooks. One with a focus on revolts and rebellions of enslaved people in the United States along with material about “Free Black” towns prior to and after the Emancipation Proclamation was signed; the second workbook is focused on careers and inventors; and the final workbook is about Black youth that have made a difference in society through activism.

My writing prompt package includes writing prompts based on quotes from significant/important people of African descendent. I currently have two more writing prompt packages in production and a board game that focuses on activism. With my daughter, I have a children’s book series about two homeschooled siblings (Akeem and Akeema: Homeschool Adventures). The thing that sets me apart from others is that the focus is specifically on people of African descent; however, the workbooks can be used by any demographic. There is an extremely limited amount of material available for homeschool families that isn’t Eurocentric and whitewashed. This has been a problem in the homeschooling community, and it is a need I decided to meet as a homeschooling parent and educator. I am most proud of the fact that parents entrust me with educating their children. These products are available services and at www.TeacherJade.com and www.AuthorJayla.com

What sort of changes are you expecting over the next 5-10 years?
As far as virtual education, I believe it is going to continue to grow as parents continue to navigate schooling and distance learning.  I think more teachers are going to leave the classroom as well. As more parents make the switch to homeschooling, I hope that more diversified curriculums become available.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.TeacherJade.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/teacher_jade/