A Working Paper from EPIC

Differential Student Uptake of In-Person Instruction During the 2020-21 School Year: Evidence from Michigan

January 2023

For most of the 2020-21 school year, Michigan was among the roughly 70% of states that let local school districts, with guidance from local health authorities, determine how and when students were welcomed back into school buildings. Using instructional modality data collected throughout the 2020-21 school year, this paper uncovers not only how district-provided opportunities for in-person and remote instruction varied across Michigan, but how different student groups actually learned during the first full school year of the pandemic and the extent to which family preferences contributed to these outcomes. Our results suggest that many students continued to choose hybrid or remote options even when provided the opportunity to learn in person. Further, we find that student demographics, urbanicity, and county-level political affiliation were all strong predictors of uptake of in-person versus remote instruction, while the relationships between uptake and county-level COVID-19 infection and death rates were generally not significant.