Remote Schooling during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Case Study of Impacts on Children in a High Poverty, High Diversity School

• In Event: Lessons from COVID -19 in Lifelong Education

Proposal

As the pandemic began in March 2020, millions of children across the world were shifted from in-person to remote instruction. This shift was impactful for parents and caregivers who relied upon schools to provide essential childcare functions during the workday. This case study explores this overarching question: How has remote schooling during the COVID-19 pandemic impacted children in high poverty, high diversity schools?
In the United States, access to in-person instruction is associated with better outcomes for children including academic and social-emotional well-being. In-person instruction also correlates with socio-economic status, racial and ethnic diversity of the population school districts serve. In New York state, 38% of school districts had elementary schools that were open for in-person instruction in mid-October 2020. However, while 30.4% of white students had access to in-person schooling, only 8.1% of Latino/a/x students and 5.6% of Black students had access to in-person schooling (Fox et al, 2021). Overall, economically disadvantaged students had less access to in-person schooling, with students identified as English language learner, homeless, disabled, and urban each less likely to have access to in-person instruction.
Research indicates that systemic inequities are associated with these differences and have contributed to differential impacts with the most marginalized and vulnerable children receiving the least opportunity for in-person instruction (Authors, in review). Consequently, experts have predicted that lack of access to in-person instruction may widen pre-pandemic inequities in educational experiences and outcomes for years to come (Strauss, 2020).
This study is part of a larger mixed methods study examining the differential impacts of remote schooling on student and caregiver well-being, including those in low-income and minoritized communities. In this case study, we explore how educators in one urban school in upstate New York characterize the impacts of remote schooling on children’s academic learning and social-emotional wellbeing, and how they navigated supporting parents and caregivers. The study holds the dual aim of contributing to the research on differential impacts of the pandemic as well as the importance of school-family-community partnerships in student success.
The research questions guiding this study are:
1. How have school leaders and educators in one urban high diversity elementary school experienced challenges among their students during or as a result of remote school?
a. What strategies have school leaders and educators employed to mitigate these challenges and reduce inequalities among students of different socioeconomic and race-ethnic backgrounds?
2. How have school closures created challenges for parents/caregivers and their children in one urban high diversity elementary school?
a. How have these challenges affected children’s health and well-being and what are some of the corresponding adaptations and coping strategies that parents/caregivers and their children have employed?

Qualitative interviews with school leaders, staff and parent/caregivers in one elementary school situated in an urban high poverty and high diversity district were conducted and analyzed to develop a richer understanding of the impact of school closures on families and students. From the school, elementary school leaders (e.g. principal), instructional staff (e.g. teachers and teaching assistants) and school support professionals (e.g. social workers, school psychologists) were identified and interviewed. To ensure that the voices of those often most invisible and marginalized are elevated in the research, hard-to reach parents/caregivers that are low-income and often excluded from policy discussions, were purposively selected to ensure that their perspectives on pandemic parenting and caregiving are given a voice. We particularly focused on recruiting parents and caregivers of elementary age children as young children require more direct supervision and were therefore vulnerable to neglect, injury, and trauma during the pandemic. Elementary schools were also more likely to provide choice to parents and caregivers about whether to send their children to school in-person or receive remote instruction when those choices became available.

Our findings suggest that parents and caregivers especially from economically disadvantaged backgrounds faced an increased workload, loss of household income which led to challenges to buy food and pay rent.

School leaders had to revisit their priorities and ensure that school staff felt supported. Teachers reported learning losses, unfinished learning, and the traumatic impact of the pandemic on some elementary-aged students as they continued to be sad, distressed and present behavioral problems, requiring greater social-emotional support and behavioral interventions. One teacher shared,

It's like they literally don't know how to have a conversation with each other. And it's sad. That group looks very sad all the time and it's heartbreaking because I've seen them when they were in third grade and then it was not like that.

Another support staff member explained,
We were living in a pandemic prior to the pandemic, immense poverty, immense amount of doors closed, obstacles in their [children’s] way to give them a chance in the future to compete with kids and families who have overwhelmingly more options.

These findings call for enhanced understanding from policymakers, nationally and internationally, on the differential impacts of remote schooling on vulnerable and marginalized children. As social-emotional wellbeing and mental health are of high concern, hiring of staff who have the expertise to address student and parent and caregiver needs during crises like the pandemic posed is apparent.

The ultimate goal – beyond the current study - is to develop strategies to address the residual impacts of pandemic-induced trauma and inform the development of new policies and practices.
Within the field of comparative and international education, this study contributes insights into the ways teachers, support staff, school leaders and parents/caregivers’ experiences in meeting the challenges of remote instruction effect themselves and children differentially. This study also draws attention to the roles of interdisciplinary research-practice collaborations in addressing differential impacts through collaborative and participatory practices and aims to elevate community-informed recommendations for those serving the most vulnerable and marginalized populations.

References:
Authors, in review

Fox AM, Lee JS, Sorensen LC, Martin EG. (2021) Sociodemographic Characteristics and Inequities Associated With Access to In-Person and Remote Elementary Schooling During the COVID-19 Pandemic in New York State.

Strauss, V. (2020). Why covid-19 will ‘explode’ existing academic achievement gaps. Washington Post.

Authors

• Maria I Khan, University at Albany - SUNY

• kristen wilcox wilcox, State University of New York, University at Albany