In general, research has shown that the pandemic disproportionately affected disadvantaged and visible minority children. According to Gallagher-Mackay and colleagues (2021), recent immigrants, some visible minorities, and gender-diverse individuals were more likely to report symptoms consistent with moderate or severe psychological distress in comparison to those not belonging to those groups [17]. These groups were also found to be overrepresented among those who were the most vulnerable to COVID-19 infection.

These effects are seen in education as well. Children from lower income families tend to have less access to remote learning tools and the internet [37]. A statewide poll in the United States showed that nearly 50% of low-income families lacked sufficient electronic devices at home to access distance learning [30], which would likely influence the impact of school closures [12]. There is evidence the COVID-19 pandemic-related challenges and school closures have deepened and accelerated inequities in educational outcomes among children [12, 37]. A large-scale study of Grade 3 students in Ohio found that Black students experienced declines in their test scores that were nearly 50% greater than that of White students, and that test scores of financially disadvantaged students decreased more than those of non-disadvantaged students [23].

There is consistent evidence of the influence of geography in addition to individual-level variables on the experience of the pandemic. There is a well-understood association between area-level socioeconomic characteristics and COVID-19 pandemic risk factors and outcomes such as working in front-line employment and infection rates [5, 10, 33, 41]. There is also strong pre-pandemic evidence of an association between area-level socioeconomic characteristics and child development at school entry [15, 44, 45]. Less well understood is whether such associations also exist with school closure-related barriers for learning, concerns about returning to school, and educator mental health.

To address this gap, we conducted a survey of kindergarten educators in Ontario, Canada from May to July 2020, on their perceptions of the impact of the COVID-19-related school closures on distance learning, returning to the classroom, and issues with mental health. A second objective of this study was to examine whether educator responses differ based on the area of the school where they teach. We hypothesized that educators who taught at schools in more socioeconomically disadvantaged areas would report an increased number of barriers to distance learning, a greater number of concerns regarding the return to school, as well as poorer mental health.

The current study was conducted as part of a larger research project entitled “Hidden Future Front Line: Educators’ perspective on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on kindergarten children” (HiFLEC) [36]. This was a cross-sectional study of kindergarten educators working in publicly-funded schools in Ontario, Canada. The HiFLEC study comprised a web-based survey that was promoted through the educators’ unions [36], and some additional social media channels from May to July 2020. Some items and scales came from other COVID-19-related surveys (e.g., parent surveys), while the questions related to the students and classrooms were developed in consultation with the educators’ unions. For the current study, we linked these data to neighbourhood composition variables from the 2016 Canadian Census, the most recent pre-pandemic, publicly available Census data.

The most recent Canadian Census was conducted in May 2021 and was not available at the time of analyses; however it is likely not relevant for the survey data collected in May-July 2020

In the province of Ontario, the kindergarten curriculum is focused on play based, interactive learning. Within each class, there is both a classroom teacher and an early childhood educator (ECE) that work together to foster healthy learning environments. Teachers are responsible for classroom instruction, student learning, and evaluation of student skills, whereas ECEs focus on the promotion of each child’s overall well-being and development [18]. For the current study, study participants were jointly referred to as “educators” and included teachers and ECEs from both English and French speaking institutions in publicly-funded school districts which in Ontario include both Catholic and public-schools. Invitations to complete the study, along with the anonymous survey link, were sent to Ontario educators via e-mail through their union newsletter. Any interested kindergarten educator in Ontario could participate in the study. Respondents represented 73 out of 74 school districts/authorities in Ontario.

To be included in the analysis, respondents had to have a valid response for their role (i.e., kindergarten teacher or ECE) and have completed at least one page of the study survey (n = 2, 569). All methods and procedures received ethical clearance from the researchers’ institutional ethics board and participation in the study was completely voluntary.

Descriptive statistics including means, proportions, and frequencies were reported to examine educators’ responses. Bivariate correlations identified associations between predictor and outcome variables. Based on the bivariate correlations, we conducted Poisson regression analyses for those Census variables that were significantly associated with any of our outcome variables.

We controlled for respondent gender and years of experience in all multivariate analyses. Gender was included because previous research consistently highlights its relationship with traits such as emotionality [26] and reported rates of depression and anxiety [13]. We acknowledge that our sample was comprised predominantly of women. Years of experience was included because pre-pandemic research has indicated that educators who report more years of experience are more likely to report greater self-efficacy [47], and therefore it is possible that educators with less experience may report greater levels of anxiety or more barriers (See Appendix A for a breakdown of outcome variables by covariates).

In each regression, respondents’ gender and years of experience were used as covariates, with each neighbourhood-composition variable as the predictor variable, and the total score on learning barriers or total number of concerns as the outcome variable. All statistical analyses were conducted using SPSS version 26.

Of the total sample (n = 2, 569), 74.2% were kindergarten teachers, and 25.8% were ECEs. Almost three quarters of the sample reported being a teacher (72.1%) or ECE (72.0%) for more than 10 years. See Table 4 for breakdown of sample characteristics.

About half (48.9%) of the educators reported that less than 25% of their students’ first language was something other than the language of instruction, and most educators (80.4%) reported that fewer than 25% of their students had special educational needs. Additionally, half of the educators reported that less than 25% of the students in their class were recent newcomers to Canada and 24.3% reported that over 50% of their class lived-in single-family homes.

Of the educators in our study, 2,160 (84.0%) had a valid score for depression and 2,146 (83.5%) had a valid score for the anxiety scale. Scores on the 30-point depression scale ranged from 0–30 (M = 11.42; SD = 6.74), and on the 21-point anxiety scale, scores ranged from 0–21 (M = 6.95; SD = 5.65).

Of the total respondents, 1,135 (44.2%) had a score for barriers to distance learning. Figure 1 displays the number of educators with each score, with a range of 10 (strongly disagreed they experienced any of the barriers to online learning) to –50 (strongly agreed they experienced all the barriers). Of those who responded, the majority of the educators (87.4%) reported a score of 30 or higher (M = 36.90; SD = 6.21), meaning that on average educators rated each barrier with a 3 or higher.

Almost three quarters (72.0%) of the educators who responded to the question about return to school (n = 1,982) reported six or more concerns out of twelve (Figure 2).

All bivariate correlations between educator mental health, reported learning barriers, and concerns regarding the return to school are displayed in Table 5. There was a small negative association between neighbourhood-level median income and both learning barriers and the total number of concerns reported by educators. There was also a small positive association between proportion of lone parent households in the neighbourhood of the school and the total number of educator concerns. There were no associations between any of the Census variables and educator depression or anxiety. There were, however, significant positive correlations between both educator depression and anxiety and barriers to distance learning and concerns about returning to school.

Following the correlations, we conducted a Poisson regression analysis to examine the association between neighbourhood median income and barriers to distance learning, while including educator gender and years of experience as covariates. The likelihood ratio chi-square test indicated that the full model was a significant improvement over a null (no predictors) model (p = 0.003). Educators who taught at schools in areas with lower median incomes reported a greater number of barriers to distance learning (p < 0.05; Table 6).

A second Poisson regression analysis examined the association between neighbourhood median income and percent of lone parents and educator-reported concerns for the return to school, including educator gender and years of experience as covariates (Table 7). The likelihood ratio chi-square test indicated that the full model was a significant improvement over a null (no predictors) model (p = 0.02). We found that educators with fewer years of experience reported a greater number of concerns regarding the return to school (p < 0.05). However, none of the SES variables were significantly associated with the number of reported concerns (lone parent families: p = 0.22; median total income: p = 0.35).

A major strength of our study was the unique ability to link teacher-reported variables to Census variables using school FSA. This allowed us to examine the potential association (or lack thereof) of school area level demographics and educator reported barriers, concerns, and mental health, due to the COVID-19 pandemic school shutdowns. As a result, our study was able to highlight that it might be more important for supports to be focused on individual educators and students, as opposed to schools.

It is possible that the associations with student-level variables may have been different if we had used a composite SES index based on areas where the students lived, rather than the school they attended, and with educator mental health if we had used the neighbourhood where they lived. However, some analyses indicate that Census-based SES indicators of school neighbourhoods are very similar to those based on postal codes of individual students attending kindergarten [29]. In addition, our study was not designed to collect individual student data. It also remains possible that having data at a more nuanced level (i.e., the family SES rather than an area-level estimate) would have yielded different results. Our data were educator reported and did not measure the direct educational or developmental impacts of the pandemic on kindergarten children. Future research should directly assess the potential impact on student outcomes (e.g., comparisons of academic achievements or developmental outcomes).

Future studies should also continue to examine these associations during different time points of the pandemic, and with the new waves of Census data.

Another potential limitation of the current study is the generalizability of the findings as this study was conducted in a single province in Canada. These results may not be generalizable to other provinces, territories, or countries, considering the variability in kindergarten curricula across jurisdictions, as well as differing COVID-19-related public health mandates and guidelines. Future research should also examine these associations in older grades, as it is possible that the associations may be different (potentially more pronounced) in other educational contexts.