Half of US Public School Students Will Attend Class Remotely

About half of school-age children in the United States will attend school remotely, according to a survey by Burbio.com.

Roughly 52 percent of students are expected to be learning in virtual classrooms at the beginning of the school year, while 44 percent will be attending school in person. Of the students attending in person, some are attending every day and others are attending only a few days of the week. About 4 percent of school districts in the United States have not finalized plans.

“We expect this situation to stay fluid for the entire academic year and we will continue to measure it,” said Julie Roche, Burbio.com co-founder. Roche also said that if COVID-19s reached each particular district’s threshold, it could result in certain districts revisiting or converting back to online learning, or resume in-person learning if COVID-19 levels drop in an area.

The survey compiled data from more than 80,000 kindergarten through 12^th grade in all states. The survey remains updated as situations change, and the site continues to monitor schools, especially the 200 largest school districts in the country, every 72 hours. Currently, New York City, as the country’s largest school district, has announced it is holding in-person instruction. About 66 percent of the 200 largest school districts have opted for remote learning.

For those school districts that are offering in-person instruction, about 19 percent of students will follow a hybrid school. Hybrid schedules space out the number of students who attend school each day to limit contact and number of students in classes. A student on a hybrid schedule may only attend school on designated days, and attend class remotely at home on other days.

About 25 percent of students will attend school every day, which amounts to about almost a quarter of public school students will attend school in person daily at the start of this school year.

Burbio.com aggregates school, government, library and community event information into data to aid in decision making for consumers and businesses. The margin for error in this survey is expected to be 2.73 percent with a 95 percent confidence level. For methodology, Burbio sampled school districts that represented 90 percent of students in the 232 most highly populated counties. The next 228 highly populated counties that had multiple school districts, Burbio surveyed between three and five school districts per county, with a 3.8 percent margin of error. For the remaining lowest populated counties which accounts for roughly 25 percent of the U.S. student population, Burbio surveyed 130 school districts and predicts a margin of error of 8 percent.