From Compliance Monitoring to Homeschooling Monitoring

A Data-Driven Insight Into COVID-19 Remote Learning

In June 2020, the U.S. Department of Justice issued updated guidance on the evaluation of corporate compliance programs.¹ One of the more significant updates related to the use of data resources, including using data for monitoring. In this article, we review various sources of data to monitor homeschool trends in the wake of COVID-related lockdowns.

A source of stress and tension in families with children, many parents have struggled to include this new homeschooling challenge as part of their daily routine. Stay-at-home orders have turned households into both classrooms and playgrounds overnight. While our professionals have extensive experience in identifying compliance risks and assessing accountability in a corporate setting, maintaining structure and accountability for kids studying at home requires a different set of skills.

Redefining Experience and Homeschooling Memes

Worldwide school closures tracked by UNESCO concluded that in April up to 1.5 billion enrolled learners across 192 countries faced educational disruptions.² In an online survey on national education responses to COVID-19, UNESCO found that 74 percent of parents felt unprepared for distance and home learning.³ One key concern for parents in introducing distance learning programs was the potential skills gap to use digital tools to support learning.

In the U.S. alone, 93 percent of public and private schools were impacted by school closures. A total of 124,000 schools were closed during the height of the COVID-19 response, affecting 55.1 million students.⁴

Footnotes:

1: https://www.justice.gov/criminal-fraud/page/file/937501/download

2: https://en.unesco.org/covid19/educationresponse

3: https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000373322

4: https://www.edweek.org/ew/section/multimedia/map-coronavirus-and-school-closures.html