Résumé
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 suggest increased -- rather than decreased -- problems during this third pandemic school year. To learn about the prevalence of these challenges nationwide, RAND researchers surveyed 359 district and charter network leaders in the American School District Panel between October 25, 2021, and December 10, 2021. Survey results suggest that districts are confronting serious challenges in the 2021-2022 school year that might be getting in the way of student learning. Although some challenges, such as student and staff mental health, are nearly universal across districts, other challenges are more localized. Historically marginalized districts are confronting extra challenges this school year, such as getting students back in school and low teacher attendance, while a higher percentage of historically advantaged districts are encountering political polarization about COVID-19. [For the companion report "Flux in the Educator Labor Market: Acute Staff Shortages and Projected Superintendent Departures. Selected Findings from the Fourth American School District Panel Survey. Data Note: Insights from the American Educator Panels. Research Report. RR-A956-9," see ED617372.]
Résumé
An American School District Panel (ASDP) survey administered in fall 2021 revealed district leaders' widespread concerns about teacher, substitute, and bus driver shortages, political polarization interfering with schooling, students' mental health, behavior, and attendance, and declining student enrollment. In this report, we revisit these concerns to assess whether the widespread problems that district leaders identified back in fall 2021 have persisted throughout the remainder of the 2021-2022 school year. This report also provides an update on the main ways that school districts are seeking to redress the negative effects of unfinished instruction because of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. This is the second of two reports with results from the spring 2022 survey of the ASDP. [For the companion report, "State of the Superintendent -- High Job Satisfaction and a Projected Normal Turnover Rate. Selected Findings from the Fifth American School District Panel Survey," see ED621831.]
Résumé
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 instruction options starting in fall 2021. The key ASDP findings presented in this report draw on the responses of 292 district leaders after weighting those responses to make them nationally representative. Results from the June 2021 ASDP survey suggest that K-12 remote instruction will outlast the pandemic. Remote instruction can be delivered in various forms, however, and the survey questions delved into three: a temporary option for fully remote instruction in fall 2021, fully online courses, and standalone virtual schools. The authors explore differences in districts' pre-pandemic offerings and plans to offer multiple remote instructional modes in the 2021-2022 school year by district type. Virtual schools have had the most marked growth. Only 3 percent of surveyed districts ran a virtual school before the pandemic began. Since the pandemic began, however, the number of districts running virtual schools has grown ninefold. And nearly one-quarter of surveyed districts that had no plans to operate a virtual school in the 2021-2022 school year had at least some interest in operating a virtual school sometime in the future. [For a related report, "Technical Documentation for the Third American School District Panel Survey. Research Report. RR-A956-6," see ED615291.]
Résumé
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 beyond pre-pandemic rates in most districts. They also found that a majority of school districts have increased or are trying to increase their number of staff--especially for substitute teachers and mental health staff--for the 2021-2022 school year. District leaders also reported budget concerns. Four in ten district leaders anticipate a fiscal cliff around the time coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) federal aid expires in September 2024, and over half of the districts that anticipate a funding increase from federal stimulus funds are concerned about their ability to spend the money, even though virtually all district leaders said that they have some level of discretion in how to spend those funds. Although districts' reported impacts have not led to much-feared budget and staffing crises for their school districts, these survey findings suggest systemic problems that could outlast the COVID-19 pandemic. [For a related report, "Technical Documentation for the Third American School District Panel Survey. Research Report. RR-A956-6," see ED615291.]