Parent–Teacher Interactions during COVID-19: Experiences of U.S. Teachers of Students with Severe Disabilities

Abstract

In 2020, COVID-19 disrupted all aspects of society across the globe including healthcare, employment, social interactions, and education. In many parts of the world, abrupt school closures caught teachers off guard, as they were forced to immediately shift their practices from in-person to online instruction with little-to-no preparation. Furthermore, during this time, many parents of school-aged children vacillated between multiple roles associated with their employment, household caregiving activities, and supporting their children at home. These challenges were especially challenging for teachers and parents of students with severe disabilities. The purpose of this study was to explore the experiences of U.S. teachers of students with severe disabilities regarding interacting with parents during the COVID-19 pandemic, including when schools initially closed in March 2020 and then reopened in September of 2020. This manuscript outlines six key themes highlighting parent–teacher interactions: (a) parents directing school decisions, (b) teacher inability to meet parent expectations, (c) parent–teacher communication, (d) parents as teachers, (e) parent exhaustion, and (f) teacher helplessness.

Educators by proxy: Emergency remote teaching and learning in the voice of parents

“…Inequality in terms of access to education, quality of the educational response, adequation to the different needs of students (personal differences, age, disabilities), and social, financial, and educational inequalities of parents and households all emerged as relevant dimensions. This inequality (also remarked in other studies, such as Aguliera and Nightengale-Lee, 2020; Czerniewicz et al, 2020;Flores and Gago, 2020;Yi et al, 2020;Pozas et al, 2021;Delès, 2022;Francis et al, 2022)-perhaps inevitable, to some extent-is one of the key reflections we take from the parents' testimonies and warrants special care to policymakers in the present moment of returning to relative normality, in the aftermath of the crisis.…”

“…This frustration, and the very expression "substitute teachers, " agrees with the perspective that we chose to include in the titleparents were called to become proxy educators (Davis et al, 2021), and that situation led to high levels of anxiety, stress, and exhaustion (Deeb et al, 2022;Francis et al, 2022;May and Hoerl, 2022). The merging of the home and school spheres and the dislocation of a significant part of the teachers' job to the parents, particularly those of younger and less self-regulated children, led to the excessive labor we have been referring to.…”

“…As we have seen, school closures have strongly disrupted children's educational processes. Alongside the enormous professional challenges and family responsibilities on the parents' shoulders, the responsibility of facilitating their children's learning was added (Drvodelić and Domović, 2022;Francis et al, 2022). Parents were called to become de facto proxy educators (Davis et al, 2021), despite having no training for that role in the vast majority of cases, which led to high levels of anxiety, stress, and exhaustion among parents (Deeb et al, 2022;Francis et al, 2022;May and Hoerl, 2022).…”

“…While the pandemic affected the education of almost all schoolchildren in the world, it did not affect them all equally (Flores and Gago, 2020;Pacheco et al, 2021;Delès, 2022). For instance, children with disabilities were a particularly vulnerable group in this context (Averett, 2021;Francis et al, 2022), whose support was reduced in the face of the needs felt by their parents (Kouroupa et al, 2022;Rababah et al, 2022). Also, different family contexts and realities lead to different perspectives on ERTL.…”

What was a gap is now a chasm: Remote schooling, the digital divide, and educational inequities resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic

“…As part of their IEPs, many students with disabilities receive special education services which relied on specialized interventions, accommodations, and other supports to meet their goals. A lack of clear policies regarding the implementation of IEPs in virtual settings [ 24 ] and the abrupt shift to remote learning during the COVID-19 pandemic presented unique challenges for educators supporting students through service delivery [ 25 , 26 ].…”