Parents say kids fell behind from COVID school closures
More than four in 10 parents say their kids fell behind academically during the COVID-19 pandemic, when California trailed the country in reopening classrooms to inperson learning, according to a poll released Wednesday.
Now that their kids are back in the classroom, three out four parents support the state’s decision to no longer require masks. But two-thirds of them are OK requiring students to receive COVID-19 vaccines once they’re approved by the Food and Drug Administration.
The new poll from the Public Policy Institute of California offers a glimpse of how parents in the Golden State feel state leaders and educators have dealt with the turmoil from the pandemic and the impact it’s had on the state’s 6 million K-12 students.
“I think it’s important to note that there are many people who feel that students suffered and that they’re concerned about the direction of the school system,” said PPIC president and CEO Mark Baldassare.
California, the first state to impose a statewide stay-home order in 2020, was the slowest to resume in-person instruction a year ago amid growing evidence students were falling behind and suffering mentally and emotionally from prolonged remote online instruction that substituted for in-class teaching.
Parent frustrations helped force Gov. Gavin Newsom to face a recall vote last fall. But he handily defeated it, arguing during the campaign that states that reopened schools faster and declined to mandate face masks and vaccines suffered more COVID-19 deaths in their overall population.
The poll reflected that seeming disconnect, with large numbers of parents and Californians frustrated, but majorities supporting Newsom’s handling of K-12 schools and saying public education is going in the right direction, though those feelings were sharply divided along partisan lines.
Among the findings:
• 44% of parents with school-age children and 46% with kids in public school say their youngest student “has fallen behind academically during the pandemic.” Of those, 19% of parents with school-age children and 20% with kids in public school say their child has fallen behind “a lot.” By the same measure, 53% of parents with school-age children and 54% with public school kids say their child did not fall behind.
• 57% of California adults say the state’s K-12 public education system “is generally going in the right direction,” and 39% in the wrong direction. Though 77% of Democrats say it’s going in the right direction, 79% of Republicans and 51% of independents say it’s going on the wrong direction.