Homol High — Where We Are Now (Phat Cats, Day Packs, and a Print Hub)

Two weeks ago Homol High was a Phase 1 repo and a nervous pilot day. Today it is a running home-study school for Grace: a curriculum spine, a four-sheet Day Pack, a black-and-gold Phat Cats brand, and a family print hub that deploys when we push. Same consulting muscle — version control, conventions, co-teacher ops — pointed at sophomore year.

The remote stays private between me and my wife Kasey. Professor Cursor is still the curriculum coach. Parents run short kickoff, check-in, and wrap — not all-day sit-beside tutoring.

If you want the origin story, start with Homol High Phase 1. This post is the “what matured after the first real weeks” follow-up we promised after that pilot.

The arc in one diagram

What Phase 1 got right (and what broke on day one)

Phase 1 shipped the bones that still matter:

• Courses for 2026–27: Geometry, World History, AP ELA, Chemistry, plus a light PE/Arts elective log
• Georgia home-study guardrails next to the ops playbook (Declaration of Intent, 180 days × ~4.5 hours, required cores)
• A Professor Cursor teaching rule: literal language, checklistable outcomes, Must-do vs Stretch, Stuck Protocol, phone-away defaults
• Co-teacher rhythm: ≤15 min kickoff, independent blocks, ≤10 min midday check-in, ≤10 min wrap
• Attendance and learning-log hooks so the year is auditable, not vibes-based

The pilot day told on us immediately. Single-sheet “lesson pages” were too dense. Parents needed answer keys that Grace should never see. Reading directions fought with problem space on the same page. Volume and sequencing needed a real weekly generation checklist — not hope.

So we iterated the product the way you iterate a delivery repo: convention first, then tooling, then brand.

Day Packs: v1 → v2 → v3

Day Pack v2 — split the audience

From 2026-09-01 we stopped stuffing everything into one sheet. Each school day became three markdown sources and three printables:

Sheet	Audience	Job
Agenda	Grace	Outcomes, block map, short videos, Stuck Protocol
Worksheet	Grace	Must-do / Stretch problems with real work space
Cheat sheet	Parents only	Talking points + full answer key

That alone changed the morning. Grace gets a map and a workbook. We get a co-teacher brief we can keep off her stack.

Day Pack v3 — add reading, adopt a spine

From 2026-09-08 (first AIOHS-aligned day after Labor Day) each day is four files:

lessons/YYYY-MM-DD/
  agenda.md
  worksheet.md
  reading.md      ← new
  cheat-sheet.md

Reading is Grace’s outbound sheet: numbered steps, links to curriculum pages and texts, novel start/stop lines. We do not paste large third-party curriculum into the repo — we link out. That keeps copyright clean and keeps the Day Pack honest about what “open the book” means.

Easy Peasy All-in-One High School (AIOHS) became the primary spine for Geometry, Chemistry, and World History. Older materials (Lassiter / Apologia) are gap-fill only. ELA stays Homol-authored; the semester novel thread starts with Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass, then 1984, then Rebecca. Friday is the writing turn-in day.

The week of 2026-09-01–09-04 counted as credited intro overlap while we cut over. From 9/8 onward, the Day Pack is the contract.

Print hub: markdown in, paper (or tablet) out

Writing Day Packs in git only helps if the family can print them without ceremony.

We added:

• print/Export-LessonPrint.ps1 — markdown → browser HTML for letter-size print / Save as PDF
• Cursor rules so any lesson create/edit/rename/delete runs print sync in the same change
• An Azure Static Web Apps family hub that auto-deploys when print/ lands on main
• Per-day mobile hubs (print/days/YYYY-MM-DD.html) so a tablet can open “today” without hunting files
• A school-day poster for the wall rhythm

The hub is family-facing, not a public Homol Works product page — same privacy rule as the private GitHub remote. No live family URL here; Azure Static Web Apps hosts it, and print/ on main is what deploys.

Short videos (often via Khan Academy search) show up on the agenda as tap-able links with a ≤5 minute bias. Assigned video = the only phone/laptop exception for that step.

Brand: Homol High Phat Cats

School needs identity almost as much as worksheets. On 2026-09-02 we locked brand:

• Team: Homol High School Phat Cats
• Mascot: Randle — black cat, glasses, letterman jacket
• Colors: black and athletic gold

The crest is the hub logo, favicon, and Add-to-Home-Screen icon. Print chrome moved off the older teal palette onto black/gold so every morning sheet feels like the same school.

What a school day looks like now

Order stays; times float:

1. Kickoff ≤15 minutes — outcomes aloud, phone away, Stuck Protocol, one clear Block A action
2. Core Block A (independent worksheet)
3. Break / movement
4. Core Block B
5. Midday check-in ≤10 minutes — parents use the cheat sheet
6. Core Block C or lab / lighter block
7. Wrap ≤10 minutes — mark must-dos, log minutes, note tomorrow

Most days center Geometry + AP ELA. World History and Chemistry share the remaining weight. Chemistry lab days flag Hands-on (kitchen materials, parent present) or Virtual (simulator / video lab) right on the agenda. We also stood up a home lab kit portal so materials stop being a surprise.

Volume targets stay aggressive on purpose — Geometry must-dos in the teens–twenties, other cores sized for ~40–60 focused minutes — with Stretch as the pressure valve when energy or time runs out.

Learning-style ops (without the trait list)

We keep a learner profile and learning log in-repo. The public rule is the same as Phase 1: we track the supports that fit Grace’s unique learning style; we do not publish the trait inventory. The Day Pack conventions (literal directions, worked examples, Stuck Protocol, read-aloud → paraphrase, Must-do vs Stretch) are the visible expression of that work.

Where the calendar is as of mid-September

• Pilot and Day Pack v2 week in the books
• AIOHS-aligned days running from Tue 2026-09-08
• Week of 9/14 day packs shipped, fall outline updated, chem lab kit portal live
• Attendance log aimed at Georgia’s 180-day / ~4.5-hour pattern — logged honestly at wrap

Homol High is no longer a weekend experiment. It is a private delivery system for one sophomore year: curriculum decisions in markdown, paper in the morning, feedback at wrap, next pack on main.