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In response to economic distress, schools are increasingly serving as providers and distributors of social service resources. However, even when schools offer resources that respond to needs, they struggle to attain high levels of uptake. We examine the family-level correlates of participation in school-sponsored resources during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic and find that uptake increases with economic need. In addition, net of need, families who report maintaining communication with parents of their children’s classmates take up more resources; and take-up of key meal and digital technology resources is associated with higher levels of take-up of other resources. These findings contribute to efforts to reposition schools as social service hubs by highlighting promising practices to improve resource uptake. 

Using data from a spring 2020 survey of nearly 10,000 parents of elementary school parents in one large southeastern public school district, the authors investigate predictors of elementary school student engagement during the initial period of pandemic remote learning. The authors hypothesize that household material and technological resources, school programming and instructional strategies, and family social capital contribute to student engagement in remote learning. The analyses indicate that even after controlling for rich measures of family socioeconomic resources, students with access to high-speed Internet and Internet-enabled devices have higher levels of engagement. Exposure to more diverse socioemotional and academic learning opportunities further predicts higher levels of engagement. In addition, students whose families remained socially connected to other students’ families were more likely to engage online.