This paper emerges from a broader study that investigated the strategies employed by teachers to continue mathematics teaching and learning during South Africa's COVID-19 lockdowns and through subsequent phased and partial re-opening of schools. In this paper, we focus on teacher views of the role of parents in these efforts gathered through two questionnaires administered from 2020 to 2021. Twenty-five Grade 4-7 mathematics teachers from schools in the Eastern Cape province took part in the study. We address the question: What were teacher perspectives on the role of parents in the continuation of mathematics teaching and learning during COVID-19 and the gradual reopening of schools? We explore the teacher responses and show how the pandemic context provided a stimulus to forge stronger teacher-parent relationships and opened opportunities for productive ways of extending mathematics learning almost exclusively undertaken in the classroom into homes.