CREDO Survey Insights: Charter School Priorities at Start of Pandemic

In February 2022, The Center for Research on Education Outcomes (CREDO) at Stanford University released a report entitled “Charter Schools’ Response to the Pandemic in California, New York and Washington State.” Over the coming weeks, the Institute will share key snapshots and insights from the study, which included responses from 293 charter schools in New York – a 93 percent response rate. 

Charter school respondents were asked to share their top priorities following the start of the pandemic in March 2020. As noted in the above figure, transitioning the instructional model, establishing family communication, maintaining student engagement, and staff communications were ranked as the highest priorities with New York charters reporting significantly higher numbers than both California and Washington in three out of four categories. Interestingly, New York schools also placed a far higher emphasis on providing social-emotional learning than the other states – a testament to how well SUNY, NYSED and NYCDOE authorized charters here in New York anticipated the potential traumatic impact of the pandemic on students’ mental health.