SLU Professor Pairs Up to Study Impact of Pandemic-Era Student and Teacher Mobility on Outcomes

04/04/2024

J. Cameron Anglum, Ph.D., assistant professor of education policy and equity at Saint Louis University’s School of Education, and Jason Jabbari, Ph.D., assistant professor and associate director of community partnerships at the Social Policy Institute at Washington University in St. Louis, received funding from the Center on Reinventing Public Education to study how COVID-19 has affected high school students and recent graduates.

In particular, Anglum and Jabbari are examining the confluence of pandemic-era student and teacher mobility and their relationship to high school student outcomes in St. Louis, including attendance, discipline, academic performance and high school graduation. 

The study’s main focus addresses whether highly mobile students attend schools with highly mobile teachers in the St. Louis region, using quantitative data sources to trace student and teacher movements throughout the region. Furthermore, certain schools may have experienced the negative effects of both pandemic-era increases in teacher mobility and increases in student mobility, which may snowball into especially challenging circumstances for student growth. 

Anglum and Jabbari hope to use this line of research as a launching point to inform medium- and long-term post-pandemic educational recovery, including examination of school enrollment decline, permanent school closure, and student and family financial well-being.