The Center for Disease Control (CDC) did not allow elementary aged students to receive the vaccination for COVID-19 (which will be referred to as the pandemic) until the Spring of 2021. This created two environments: the face-to-face learning environment and the virtual learning environment. Teachers were thrown into a situation in which they had…

The purpose of this ex-post facto quantitative study was to compare English Language Arts (ELA) and math Tennessee Compressive Assessment Program (TCAP) scores of students in grades four through eight who attended school virtually or in-person during the 2020-2021 school year. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the school district in this study allowed…

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, schools were forced to close their doors and alternative learning environments had to be established (Wyse et al., 2020). Most districts addressed this issue by creating virtual learning environments (Kaffenberger, 2021). The creation, adoption, and navigation of this new virtual environment created a plethora of…

The current study aimed to explore the COVID-19 impact on reading achievement growth by Grade 3-5 students in a large urban school district in the U.S. and whether the impact differed by students' demographic characteristics and instructional modality. Specifically, using administrative data from the school district, we investigated to what extent…

This explanatory mixed-methods study explored if there was a change in student progress as measured by STAR percentile rank due to the multiple instructional modalities caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Educational institutions had to shift to distance learning in March of 2020 due to the outbreak of COVID-19. The return to school for the 2020-2021…

The current study aimed to explore the COVID-19 impact on the reading achievement growth of Grade 3-5 students in a large urban school district in the U.S. and whether the impact differed by students' demographic characteristics and instructional modality. Specifically, using administrative data from the school district, we investigated to what…

The purpose of this qualitative case study was to examine the effect of learner-centered pedagogy on student engagement in a virtual elementary instrumental music program. Eleven fourth- and fifth-grade students from an elementary school in the Southeastern United States worked remotely toward creating a virtual performance over 28 weeks. All…

We examine the relationship between absenteeism and achievement since the onset of COVID-19. Applying first-differences models to North Carolina administrative data, we estimate that each absence was associated with a 0.0032 standard deviation (SD) decline in math achievement in 2022-23. As students averaged 3.3 more absences in 2022-23 than…

This mixed-methods phenomenological study explored teacher perception and the phenomenon of general education teachers' lived experiences regarding the intricacies involved with assigning homework to diagnosed dyslexic students. Seven third and fourth grade general education teachers gave their perceptions, strategies, and experiences of assigning…

In March of 2020, in response to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the state of Illinois mandated the transition to remote instruction for all schools. Although schools had the option to resume in-person instruction during the 2020-21 school year (SY21), the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) acknowledged that in-person instruction may not…

The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in the spring of 2020 was marked by a transition to remote learning in Illinois schools and nationwide. The following school year, schools and families faced difficult decisions about how and when to return to in-person learning. School leaders, parents and caregivers, and students considered how to balance…

For over two years, schools, teachers, students, and families across Illinois have worked to adapt instruction and learning under the ever-changing conditions wrought by COVID-19. This report, the third and final in the Learning During the Pandemic in Illinois series, investigates how much time students spent learning in-person and/or remotely…