On Saturday, the Globe and Mail reported that high-income parents in Toronto and across Canada are choosing to form “learning pods” rather than send their children to in-person school this fall. But our analysis of registration survey results released by TDSB last Thursday shows that parents in the most economically advantaged schools overwhelmingly opted for in-person rather than virtual school. In contrast, a smaller share of parents in middle- and lower-income schools preferred in-person school.¹
The graph below shows the percent of elementary school² parents who selected in-person learning by the school’s Learning Opportunities Index (LOI). LOI is TDSB’s composite measure of schools’ “external challenges,” based on neighbourhood census data for the students attending the school.