“This Is Not Online Education. It’s Disaster Education”: A Qualitative Study of Remote and Hybrid School Climates During COVID-19

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Pentious

This qualitative study examines how school climate—relationships, well-being, and self-efficacy—was experienced in fully remote and hybrid learning settings during COVID-19, spanning Fall 2020 through Spring 2021. Drawing on perceptions from K–12 student services professionals, including school counselors, psychologists, and social workers, the study compares insights across remote and hybrid contexts. Despite expectations of advantages for hybrid schools, both settings revealed challenges tied to “disaster” education, including student isolation concerns and increased demands on educators, informing planning for future disruptions.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages22

Reading Time55 min

AccessFree to download

Introduction

School climate and the pandemic research gap

Study focus and approach

Participants and qualitative comparison

AERA Open January-December 2025, Vol. 11, No. 1, pp. 1–22 DOI: 10. 1177/23328584251338058 Article reuse guidelines: [sagepub.com/journals-permissions](sagepub.com/journals-permissions)[ ](sagepub.com/journals-permissions)© The Author(s) 2025. [https://journals.sagepub.com/home/ero](https://journals.sagepub.com/home/ero) “This Is Not Online Education. It’s Disaster Education”: A Qualitative Study of Remote and Hybrid School Climates During COVID-19 Megan R. Griffard University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill University of Nevada, Las Vegas Marisa E. Marraccini University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Danette Barber University of Nevada, Las Vegas Lauren Sartain Dana C. Griffin University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill In evaluating the experiences of students and educators during the COVID-19 pandemic, considerable attention has been given to teaching and learning. Less research examines school climate, an important predictor of academic outcomes. This study explores school climate in fully remote and hybrid learning environments between Fall 2020 and Spring 2021. Leveraging the expertise of K–12 student services professionals (school counselors, psychologists, and social workers), we qualitatively compared perceptions of aspects of school climate (i.e., relationships, well-being, and self-efficacy) for students and educators. While we expected hybrid schools to have some advantages over fully remote schools for school climate, we found that both types of schools were grappling with disaster educators. Similar issues, such as concerns about student isolation and the demands placed on educators, emerged across participant descriptions of school climate in both settings. The findings can inform planning for future disruptions and crisis events in schools. Keywords: Counseling, COVID-19, educational policy, educators, health, hybrid learning, in-depth interviewing, learning environments, peer interaction/friendship, planning, qualitative research, remote learning, school climate As the world emerges from the acute stages ofthe COVID- 19 pandemic, an essential next step for policymakers and educational leaders is to evaluate the policies that guided schools during the pandemic. These efforts can inform planning for future disruptions and crisis events (Grissom & Condon, 2021). A primary consideration is how to mitigate the impact of disruptions to schooling on teaching and learning, as these are the main drivers of student and school performance. Accordingly, considerable research attention has been given to the impact of the pandemic on students’ academic achievement (e.g., Engzell et al., 2021; Kuhfeld et al., 2022; Van Lancker & Parolin, 2020) and changes to teachers’ instructional practices and working conditions (e.g., Johnson et al., 2023; Kaden, 2020; Pressley, 2021). Although achievement and instructional practices are impacted by school climate in that they facilitate teaching and learning (Cohen et al., 2009; Zullig et al., 2010), few studies have addressed school climate during the pandemic. This study addressed this research gap by exploring school personnel’s perceptions of school climate during the pandemic. School climate consists of the physical, social, and emotional components of the learning environment as perceived Creative Commons Non Commercial CC BY-NC: This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 License ([https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/)) which permits non-commercial use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access pages ([https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage](https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage)). Griffard et al. by its members, especially students and staff (Loukas, 2007; Thapa et al., 2013) . The phy

FAQs

What does the study analyze about school climate during COVID-19?

It examines aspects of school climate such as relationships, well-being, and self-efficacy in fully remote and hybrid learning environments.

Who provided the qualitative perceptions used in the study?

K–12 student services professionals, including school counselors, psychologists, and social workers, contributed perceptions of school climate.

What key finding emerged when comparing remote and hybrid school settings?

Both remote and hybrid schools were grappling with “disaster education,” with shared concerns such as student isolation and heightened demands on educators.

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Pentious