The Leon County School District has released a dashboard tallying Covid-19 infections, but the numbers only reflect daily cases and not a cumulative figure. The reason: the district doesn’t have the ability to distinguish between active infections and those who’ve recovered.
“Right now it’s day-by-day. I think it can be somewhat misleading because the kid who tested positive is back in school, but they’re still showing as an active number?”
The state's Covid-19 dashboard keeps a cumulative total of cases, but doesn't break out recoveries. and also doesn't distinguish between active and recovered cases.
School Board members Rosanne Wood and Alva Striplin said they'd like for the district to come up with a way to incorporate a cumulative total. Striplin says she wants to "be clear" about what the district is communicating.
"I’ve looked at a lot of dashboards from around the state, there are a lot of ways to skin a cat. I think the main thing we wanted to do to get started was post the positive ones for that day and continue that going. But….there’s all kinds of ways to do it," said Assistant Superintendent Alan Cox, calling the dashboard a "work in progress."
The data posted daily to the dashboard is the same information the district has to report to the state. During Tuesday night’s school board meeting the district said it has recorded 14 students and 5 staff who’d contracted the virus since school started last Monday. More than 50 kids are at home in quarantine due to exposure. The dashboard lists cases by students, employees and school.
