The outbreak of COVID-19 has had unprecedented, serious effects on global healthcare systems with chain reactions on every aspect of human life, including socioeconomic and education (Armitage and Nellums, 2020). Upon the WHO declaration of COVID-19 as a global pandemic (World Health Organization (WHO), 2020), countries around the world locked down to minimize the disease’s spread potential and applied unparalleled draconian measures, including school closures affecting more than 1.5 billion learners and 630 million school teachers all over the world (UNESCO, 2022). Different countries introduced various policies, ranging from complete closure in Germany, and Greece to targeted closure in the United Kingdom (Nicola et al., 2020). Overall, more than 100 countries imposed a nationwide closure of educational facilities at all levels of the educational system. Within the pandemic aftereffects’ context, socially disadvantaged populations, such as disabled people, have experienced an exacerbation of existing social inequalities (Ahmad et al., 2020; Dorn et al., 2020). 2020). In particular, disabled students have been disproportionally affected by the lockdown-related measures; for example, they have been forced rather than by own choice to interrupt or to have no access to quality education and to experience the disruption of community support networks (Karagianni, 2020).

In Greece, disabled students were extremely affected at an educational, pedagogical and social level. In particular, 7.8% of the Greek disabled students attend state educational settings; that is, 105,970 students suffered from the pandemic implications  (Rellas, 2020). The majority of disabled students are educated in mainstreaming and fewer students are educated in segregated educational environments (Kassianos, 2018). However, in both cases, there was no preparation or measures taken to support them and their families at homeschooling (E.S.A.meA. – Observatory of Disability Issues, 2021). Furthermore, no measures were taken on educational and therapeutic personnel attendance, individualized support, and adaptive educational resources (Rellas, 2020).

Albeit the policy responses that were undertaken to address the implications of the COVID-19 pandemic, the organizational preparedness and response planning of educational organizations has been found poor and non-disability inclusive (efsyn.gr, 2020). However, in terms of policy and strategic planning, the pandemic preparedness and response has been acknowledged to be a starting point for reforms in established systems such as schools (Guterres, 2021). The WHO described pandemic preparedness as “a continuous process of planning, exercising, revising and translating into action national and sub-national pandemic preparedness and response plans” (World Health Organization (WHO), 2011). The policy and decision makers are aligned with this approach and argue over the need for a system thinking change approach guided by organizational pandemic preparedness plans (Aronson, 1996; Arnold and Wade, 2015). This implies the need to address the pandemic preparedness gap in educational organizations to respond to the needs of more vulnerable groups of students such as disabled students (Papazoglou, 2020). Thus, it seems of crucial importance to focus on organizational preparedness for education, including identifying the main areas (domains) of preparedness that guide the process of organizational preparedness and the sub-themes (indicators) per domain that help educational organizations to evaluate their level of preparedness and to identify potential gaps and set priorities for planning. In order to explore and understand the abovementioned challenges, the current study aims to examine the role of school settings in managing the educational crisis that emerged from the global pandemic. Specifically, the study explores the perceptions of primary and secondary school principals over the level of preparedness of the schools for supporting disabled students during the global pandemic. The study aims to identify ways and processes followed at different domains when addressing disabled students’ educational and psycho-social needs during the global pandemic.

Sample The sample of the study consisted of 166 school principals (52 males, 114 females) of preschool (n=66), primary (n=65) and secondary (n=35) education. The majority of the participants were between 51-60 years old (66.9%), they had between 21-30 or more than 30 years of working experience (48.2% and 28.9 respectively) while half of them worked in middle sized schools (between 50 up to 100 students) Instrument Survey development was based on the existing literature. The questionnaire survey was comprised of three main sections. The first section included questions focusing on collecting information about the participating schools [i.e. type of school (regular or special), level of education provided (preschool-primary-secondary education), school location (urban or rural), size of school, e.c.t] and demographic characteristics of school principals. The second section focused on eliciting principals’ perspectives regarding the degree of preparedness of the schools in terms of ways and procedures employed to respond to the educational and psycho-social needs of disabled students during the COVID-19 pandemic crisis. Specific information was required focusing on six main domains of schooling: a. resources, b. human resources, c. pedagogical processes, d. educational practices, e. collaboration-communication, and f. policy-practices for monitoring and assessing the degree of preparedness. The third section involved questions related to the challenges school principals faced in responding to the needs of disabled students and their recommendations. The questionnaire survey contained a combination of questions. Most questions (84 out of 87 questions) were closed questions answered through a 5-point Likert type scale (1=strongly disagree and 5=strongly agree). After obtaining an ethical approval by the Ethics Committee, the survey questionnaire was send electronically via google form to 500 state preschool, primary and secondary regular and special education settings in different parts of Greece. The survey started at September 2022 and is still in progress. The quantitative data were analyzed by using the SPSS package version 27. Firstly, descriptive analyses were performed (means, frequencies, and percentages) to explore basic trends in responses. Next, the Spearman’s rho and Mann-Whitney criteria were applied to explore relations among respondents’ responses and their demographic characteristics as well as the characteristics of the school. Besides answering closed questions, the participants were also given the opportunity to elaborate on their views in three open-ended questions focusing on students’ educational needs that remained uncovered during the pandemic. Their answers were analyzed qualitatively with the aim to create categories deriving from the data.

The study is still in progress, however, the preliminary quantitative analysis of collected questionnaires highlighted among others i) the critical aspects of preparedness for school settings, ii) the participation of disabled students in their learning and the practices that affected their participation, iii) challenges students experienced and strategies employed by schools to overcome those challenges/barriers, iv) employed educational practices during the global pandemic, v) educators’ role, vi) collaboration between educators and parents/carers of disabled students. According to the principals who participated in the study, at the beginning of the global pandemic a need emerged for educators to attend professional development workshops/be professionally trained in the use of ICT to support disabled students in their learning; counselling skills to be able to support students and their families; differentiated educational practices that could advance/improve the learning moving beyond the physical space of classrooms; collaboration practices with students with disabilities and their families aiming towards the development of responsive to each family’s needs educational program; development and adoption of collaborative processes/practices among key stakeholders in the educational practice during the global pandemic. Furthermore, results supported the lack of social and political capacity to respond to the needs and demands of disabled students, thus transferring the responsibility for the education of disabled students to their families. The results of this study can provide the opportunity for further discussion on the reflection and re-development of responsive policies and practices to the needs of disabled students in times of crisis like the global COVID-19 pandemic.

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