O2026: Educational Stakeholders’ Perspectives on the Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on School Communities

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted racial inequities both in health and in educational arenas. For example, during the pandemic, Black and Latinx students were more likely to remain in remote instruction and without the benefits of on-site school-based health services. Despite the unprecedented challenges faced by schools, few studies have investigated the direct effects of the pandemic on the school community and from the perspective of educational staff.

Methods: This qualitative study focused on public elementary schools serving majority Black and Latinx students in neighborhoods classified as low-income and experiencing a high burden of COVID-19 infections. We conducted semi-structured interviews via Zoom with key school employee stakeholders from two schools. We started with principals and school nurses and then identified additional stakeholders through snowball sampling. Interview questions focused on the impact of COVID-19 and remote learning on programming and school-family relationships. Four team members coded and analyzed data using grounded theory methods, applying inductive reasoning and establishing themes through an iterative process.

Results: Nine stakeholders across two schools participated in interviews. Within the domain of the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on schools, six major themes emerged (Table 1). At the student level, isolation and witnessing the pandemic’s toll in their own communities appeared to worsen mental and emotional health. Stakeholders perceived adaptations such as virtual counseling that promotes effective emotional coping as a mitigator of student stress. As one stakeholder noted “I know it’s difficult like on a computer and everything but… I think [the students] still like the fact that they have that opportunity to still talk to us and, you know, vent if they need to.” However, virtual adaptations school-wide were impeded by inadequate technological access, such as a lack of headphones for privacy, and limited technological literacy among guardians. One stakeholder observed that “There were some barriers there because everyone didn’t have the ability to sign off on the documents, didn’t understand that DocuSign, which is something we’ve been using a lot because of COVID.”

Conclusion: Our study’s findings of worsened mental health align with prior studies describing elevated rates of mental health concerns among children since the start of the pandemic. As the crisis continues to unfold, schools should dedicate resources towards the screening and mitigation of students’ mental and emotional wellbeing with particular attention to children whose families are at risk for economic and health-related hardships. As described by stakeholders, schools in this study adopted successful virtual programming during remote learning; however adequate technological resources and literacy are necessary for engaging both students and guardians during remote learning, especially with increasingly virtual education. These data provide a critical insight that can inform school-based interventions addressing the needs of the most vulnerable students in the ongoing COVID-19 crisis.