Did COVID-19 school closures merely reduce learning, or did they redirect students’ educational pathways? This paper studies this question in Russia, where school closures varied sharply across regions and grades and students choose educational tracks relatively early. We combine the 2017–2024 Russia Longitudinal Monitoring Survey with a new daily dataset of grade-specific regional school closures. Stacked difference-in-differences estimates show that closures reduced academic performance and disrupted structured educational inputs, including extended school programs and extracurricular enrichment. Households responded through informal childcare and higher private education spending, but these adjustments were partial and concentrated among more advantaged families. Using cohort-specific cumulative exposure to instructional closure days, we show that exposure shifted students away from general secondary education and toward specialized college tracks, with smaller increases in non-enrollment, especially among students without universityeducated parents. The results suggest that school closures affected not only instructional time but also students’ progression through the education system, contributing to divergence in educational trajectories by parental education.