New Dashboard Tracks Coronavirus Cases In Schools Across 47 States

New Dashboard Tracks Coronavirus Cases In Schools Across 47 States The effort, still in its early stages, hopes to track infections and determine the effectiveness of safety measures. NPR.org

A new national effort asks K-12 schools to voluntarily — and anonymously — report their confirmed and suspected coronavirus cases, along with the safety strategies they're using.

Opening schools safely in person is seen as key to restarting the economy and recovering the learning loss that has fallen most heavily on marginalized groups of students. There are also many fears associated with reopening — of severe illness among vulnerable staff and family members, and of stoking broader outbreaks, as seems to have happened where colleges have reopened in person.

The COVID-19 School Response Dashboard, which NPR is reporting on exclusively, was created with the help of several national education organizations. Right now it shows an average of 230 cases per 100,000 students, and 490 per 100,000 staff members, in the first two weeks of September. The responses come from public, private and charter schools in 47 states, serving roughly 200,000 students both in person and online, as of Tuesday, Sept. 22.

As of right now, this sample is a tiny fraction of the more than 56 million K-12 students in the United States. But the dashboard will be continuously updated, and the number of schools participating is expected to grow.

Emily Oster, an economist at Brown University, is spearheading the effort. She is known for her popular writing on data and science literacy for parents. She said she got involved in independent data collection on coronavirus cases in schools because "other people weren't doing it." Eventually, the School Superintendents Association, the National Association of Elementary School Principals, the National Association of Secondary School Principals and groups representing charter and independent schools joined forces to urge school leaders to contribute. A software company called Qualtrics did the analysis. ...

Also see Washington Post story:  Feared coronavirus outbreaks in schools yet to arrive, early data show

Thousands of students and teachers have become sick with the coronavirus since schools began opening last month, but public health experts have found little evidence that the virus is spreading inside buildings, and the rates of infection are far below what is found in the surrounding communities. . ...