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New Survey Reveals How School Closures Are Impacting Parents

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As schools continue to remain closed throughout the country due to coronavirus, more and more parents are finding themselves with an unexpected and challenging new job title: Teacher.

The world's largest online learning community, Brainly surveyed 600 U.S. moms and dads of school-age children to find out how the closures and homeschooling are impacting them personally, how they are helping their kids with schoolwork in the absence of in-classroom instruction, and how it’s impacting their own work productivity.

Here's a summary of the findings:

  1. WORK WOES. Nationwide 41% of parents said their work productivity has been negatively impacted by their child shifting to home learning, and 44% have had a work call interrupted by one of their children.
  2. THE NIGHT SHIFT. Roughly 37% of parents work an extra 1-2 hours each day to make up for time lost during business hours that were devoted to their children because of school closures, and 24% said they work an extra 2-3 hours each day.
  3. ANXIOUS TIMES. About 84% of parents are worried that COVID-19 related changes to their child’s education will negatively impact their learning, and 61% worry their child’s college and career prospects will be negatively impacted. Additionally, 68% of parents are worried about their job security because they have to devote more time to their children due to school closures.
  4. STRESS TAKES CENTERSTAGE. Nearly 79% of parents said they find it stressful to help their child with homeschooling. When it comes to the most challenging subject for parents to help their kids with, 66% of parents agree it’s math.
  5. TEACHER APPRECIATION. Approximately 78% of moms and dads said they have a newfound admiration and respect for their kids’ teachers after having to help their child homeschool during the COVID-19 school closures.