Exploratory Survey on Parents’ Perceptions of Elementary School Operation and Facility Improvement in Pandemic Circumstances

This study investigated the perception of elementary school parents about elementary school management in a pandemic situation. The sur-vey covered 187 parents of elementary school students nationwide and applied the convenience sampling method. As the results of the Important-Preference analysis, the “Facilities for infection prevention” showed the highest preference and importance for the prevention of airborne infection in elementary schools. After that, “Personal hygiene,” “Space for infection prevention,” “Class operation method,” and “Attendance method method” are followed. Many respondents thought positively about the operation of ventilation and sterilization devices and the installation of individual partitions. That is to say, there is a high demand from parents for the expansion of infection prevention facilities in schools during the pandemic, and there is a need to prepare a response plan. In addition, it is noteworthy that there is a high burden on partial school attendance and a high preference for full school attendance during a pandemic. This means that the burden of child care on parent and the burden on school staff may conflict during the pandemic. Therefore, it is judged that it is necessary to prepare policy alternatives that can sufficiently reflect the demands of these stakeholders.