I am always amazed how Mark provides such good advice with so little input... In any case I have some additional thoughts:
1. What are the "parent-completed rating scales"?. Have you assessed this measurement system? Is there consistency within and between rater? How much variation is there within/between rater? Are you just averaging these ratings? How are you handling rater bias?
2. I'm not exactly sure what you mean by repeated measures. If indeed they are repeats (multiple data points without the treatment combinations changing), they do not add degrees of freedom. So it looks like you will have 5 DF's. As Mark points out, it would be most logical to look for linear relationships (non-linear race/ethic status is illogical) so you will have to "give up" a degree of freedom to estimate the linear effect of the covariate (no interaction).
3. I would typically recommend replicates to add DF's to investigate covariates (you will have both fixed and random effects in the model).
4. Analyze (fit model) the covariate using sequential tests (Type 1) and partial (Type 3) for the fixed effects. Turn on VIF's (add column in parameter estimates) to look for correlation among the predictor variables.
"All models are wrong, some are useful" G.E.P. Box