Numerous accounts suggest that public school superintendents are burned out and frustrated by the accumulated stress of steering schools through the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic and political polarization, and that they are increasingly at risk of mass attrition. However, despite high stress levels and similarly dire predictions…

Shooting incidents at kindergarten through grade 12 (K-12) schools in the United States have sparked calls to increase security or adopt altogether new approaches to school safety. These approaches include allowing teachers or staff to carry firearms in some schools. To learn what teachers across the United States think about school safety…

In a time when simply carrying out the essential functions of their jobs is a herculean task, educators have been faced with the additional challenge of addressing contentious, politicized topics in their schools and classrooms. Drawing from nationally representative samples of teachers and principals who completed the 2022 State of the American…

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…

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…

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,…