Cedar Valley school districts divided on public sharing of COVID-19 cases | Education News
When Waterloo Schools’ officials are made aware of a student or staff member being exposed to the disease or exhibiting symptoms, Thomas said, “we have multiple people trained to be contact tracers.” She said appropriate measures are taken to contain the spread as people with possible exposure are tracked down. She noted that families are free to release their own medical information “but we’re not going to do that.”
Superintendents making the number of exposures and positive cases public in their districts say they are sensitive to the same concerns about people’s medical information.
“I understand all of the arguments both for and against it,” said Tony Voss, superintendent of Hudson Schools. “The folks that aren’t doing it, I think they have legitimate concerns.
“I’m just releasing those as aggregate numbers,” he said, suggesting that doesn’t allow for identification of specific people. The district has an online COVID-19 dashboard showing the number of students and staff in quarantine and those who have received positive tests. “For me, I can see no downside to sharing data out in the aggregate because it reassures people that you’re being transparent with them.”
Denver’s reporting makes no distinction between students and employees who test positive.
“We have the staff and students in one group for the positive tests and we feel that is a little more confidential,” said Laures. “We just have to be careful that we don’t violate privacy laws and people’s confidentiality.”
