School districts are facing several urgent questions as they plan for fall 2021. Will parents send their children to school in person in fall 2021? Why or why not? And what can schools do to reassure parents about sending their children to in-person schooling? To answer these questions RAND researchers surveyed 2,015 parents of children ages 5-18…

Many studies have documented a large decline in students' mathematics achievement during and after the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. The question facing school districts now is how to help students recover. Since fall 2020, RAND researchers have repeatedly surveyed and interviewed district leaders who are members of the American…

Media accounts have described kindergarten through 12th grade teaching staff shortages in 2021-2022 that were severe enough to temporarily close schools for in-person instruction in some areas. Although much has been written about the negative impacts of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic on teachers, less is known about the extent…

Policymakers had hoped that the 2021-2022 school year would be a chance to recover from coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic--related disruptions to schooling. Instead, media reports of staff shortages, heated or even violent school board meetings, increased student misbehavior, low student and teacher attendance, and enrollment declines…

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has added more stress to an already high-stress profession: American public school teacher. The authors of this report share the results of a new survey of nearly 1,000 former public school teachers and reveal how important stress has been--even more so than pay--to teachers' decisions to leave the…

This report provides the survey questions and weighted responses from a July 2021 survey of parents concerning school hesitancy and preferences for COVID-19 safety practices in schools in the United States. The results are intended to inform school districts' and health officials' planning for operating schools in fall 2021. [For the survey…

The onset of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has prompted school districts in the United States to offer remote schooling options for their K-12 students. The authors of this report fielded the third American School District Panel (ASDP) survey in June 2021 to assess districts' plans to offer both temporary and more-lasting remote…

This document provides the survey methods appendix that accompanies the study, "Will Students Come Back? A July 2021 Parent Survey about School Hesitancy and Parental Preferences for COVID-19 Safety Practices in Schools. Research Report. RR-A1393-2" (ED615819). The appendix provides information about the sample, survey instrument, and…

Over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, progressively more complete data have shed light on the tremendous variation in districts' approaches to schooling. Some districts have provided fully remote learning since the outset of the pandemic, some have mostly provided in-person learning, and others have fallen somewhere in between. In this report,…

This report presents school district leaders' views about staff turnover, hiring, and districts' financial outlooks at the end of the 2020-2021 school year. Based on the survey responses of 292 district leaders from the American School District Panel (ASDP), the authors found that teacher and principal turnover had not increased substantially…

School districts in the United States are responding to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic in significantly different ways. The authors of this report fielded the third American School District Panel (ASDP) survey in June 2021 to discover what changes districts are making to their academic and nonacademic offerings for the upcoming…

In spring 2020, the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic led to an unprecedented and sweeping shift in the landscape of public schooling in the United States. Beginning in March, schools across the country closed their doors and adopted remote learning supports that varied in degree and type. In May 2020, researchers from the RAND…

U.S. school districts have taken widely varied approaches to reopening public schools for the 2020-2021 school year. The divergence stems from the highly localized approach to both schooling and addressing the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic and differences in COVID-19 transmission rates among communities. To develop a national…