TY  - JOUR
AB  - The COVID-19 pandemic drew new attention to the role of school boards in the U.S. In this paper, we examine school districts' choices of learning modality -- whether and when to offer in-person, virtual, or hybrid instruction -- over the course of the 2020-21 pandemic school year. The analysis takes advantage of granular weekly data on learning mode and COVID-19 cases for Ohio school districts. We show that districts respond on the margin to health risks: all else equal, a marginal increase in new cases reduces the probability that a district offers in-person instruction the next week. Moreover, this negative response is magnified when the district was in-person the prior week and attenuates in magnitude over the school year. These findings are consistent with districts learning from experience about the effect of in-person learning on disease transmission in schools. We also find evidence that districts are influenced by the decisions of their peers.
AU  - Christian, Alvin
AU  - Jacob, Brian
AU  - Singleton, John D.
PY  - 2022
ST  - Assessing School District Decision-Making: Evidence from the COVID-19 Pandemic
TI  - Assessing School District Decision-Making: Evidence from the COVID-19 Pandemic
UR  - http://www.edworkingpapers.com/ai22-660
ER  -