Plans of US Parents Regarding School Attendance for Their Children in the Fall of 2020: A National Survey

Abstract

Importance: As schools consider reopening for in-person instruction prior to availability of a coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccine, families may be weighing their priorities regarding school attendance. Objective: To characterize the association of planned in-person school attendance during the COVID-19 pandemic with factors, including family socioeconomic characteristics, and parent attitudes and beliefs about their child's school attendance. Design, Setting, and Participants: Cross-sectional survey study. Data were collected from June 2, 2020, to June 5, 2020, weighted to reflect population norms, and analyzed using ordered probit regression. A sample of US parents (of children ages 5-17 years) were recruited using a nonprobability survey panel with stratification by socioeconomic characteristics. Main Outcomes and Measures: The main outcome was parent-reported plan to send their child to school or keep their child home, conditional on their school opening for in-person instruction. Additional measures assessed family socioeconomic characteristics, medical vulnerability, worry about COVID-19 and multisystem inflammatory syndrome, confidence in their child's school, and homeschooling difficulties. Results: The sample of 730 parents was balanced by parent sex (53% women) with successful oversampling for Black (28%; n = 201) and Hispanic (27%; n = 200) participants. In estimates weighted to US population norms, 31% (95% CI, 27% to 34%) of participants indicated they would probably or definitely keep their child home this fall, and 49% indicated that they would probably or definitely send their child to school this fall. Factors associated with planning to keep children home included lower income (38% with incomes