A Year Like No Other: Parents' Pandemic Educational Experiences and Priorities

• In Event: The Promise and Limitations of Parent Pandemic Innovation for K–12 Policy and Practice

Abstract

Purpose
The landscape of public education has changed dramatically since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. The disproportionate impact of the pandemic on low-income communities of color along with growing national awareness around racial injustice have heightened concerns about inequity and spurred well-publicized and politicized debates around how schools should respond. Yet parents’ perspectives are often missing from these debates. Drawing from parent surveys and interviews in five states, this paper examines 1) how parents experienced school responses to the pandemic and heightened attention to racial injustice, and 2) how the crisis shaped parents’ priorities moving forward.

Conceptual Framework & Literature
This study is informed by organizational theory and research. Punctuated equilibrium theory (Jones & Baumgartner, 2005; 2012; Tushman & Romanelli, 1985) suggests that crises can trigger organizational change and innovation, and new roles for stakeholders (e.g., parents). One such innovation we explore in depth is the creation of learning “pods” or “hubs” in which groups of students learn together with the help of an in-person adult. Additionally, organizational resilience and learning literature (Duchek, 2019; Weick, 1988) indicates that organizational context likely shapes crisis response and parent experiences (e.g., regulatory arrangements of private schools might position them well for nimble crisis response). We explore these contexts in our comparative analyses of survey and interview data.

Methods
The study employs an embedded mixed-methods design (Creswell, 2012) to understand how parents experienced schooling in 2020-21 and what they prioritize for the future. We administered an online opt-in survey to 3,654 parents/guardians of school-aged children in Colorado, Florida, Louisiana, Michigan, and Oregon. For the majority of our analysis, we relied on summary statistics to provide a descriptive picture of parent educational experiences in and across the states. We then interviewed a purposive sub-sample of parents in the five main urban areas in each state (n=52), probing on issues that emerged from our survey analyses. Parent interviewees come from a range of economic and racial/ethnic backgrounds, school sectors, childrens’ schooling levels, and partisan affiliation. All interviews were transcribed and analyzed with guidance from the conceptual framework.

Results
Overall, we find significant variation in parents' experiences during the pandemic (e.g., the take up of pods), by state policy context, by race and class, and by school sector. However, our findings also point to commonalities across contexts and families, namely that a majority of parents are more concerned about addressing social-emotional needs over academics in light of COVID; most prefer schools spend resources on mental health supports versus extending the school year or week in terms of recovery efforts from COVID; almost half are considering remote options for the coming year, and a majority want to see more emphasis on race, equity, and diversity in the school curriculum. Interviews further reveal complex tradeoffs parents faced in the broadened choice environment.

Scholarly Significance
Our study results provide insights into how the global pandemic shaped parents’ values and priorities, as well as their conceptualizations of “school choice.” The paper concludes with implications for policymakers and district leaders.

Authors

• Tong Tong, University of Southern California

• Julie A. Marsh, University of Southern California