Muscogee doesn’t send weekly COVID report as other school districts continue. Here’s why
Whether you can know how many COVID-19 cases among students and employees are reported in your school district now depends on whether the administration wants to share that information with you.
The Georgia Department of Public Health no longer requires school districts to report their aggregate COVID-19 data each week. The response among Columbus area school officials is mixed.
The Muscogee County School District has suspended its weekly COVID report, the Harris County School District continues to publicly disclose its coronavirus numbers, and the Chattahoochee County School District continues as well, but plans to suspend its report after spring break.
DPH spokeswoman Nancy Nydam told the Ledger-Enquirer in an email the reporting mandate was discontinued, as of Feb. 25, “due to having moved to another phase of the COVID pandemic, i.e., improvements in infections, hospitalizations, death rates and outbreaks in recent weeks.”
In its notification to school districts, DPH said, “Your hard work has been a great asset to our health departments and public health efforts to understand this virus. As the COVID-19 pandemic continues, we at the health department are looking for ways to lessen your reporting burden.”
School districts still are required to report COVID cases and clusters in their schools to their local health department. But health departments don’t report that data broken down by school district.
School district rationale
MCSD suspended releasing its weekly coronavirus report because DPH doesn’t require it anymore, Tracy Fox, the school district’s risk management director, told the Ledger-Enquirer in an email.
“However, the school district continues to provide notification of positive cases (if any) to parents/guardians,” she said.
MCSD’s last weekly coronavirus report, released March 4, showed the district had had three reported COVID cases (two students, one employee) that week — its lowest level of the school year — and the same number as the previous week after five straight weeks of declines.
MCSD had 30,822 students and 5,175 employees, including 3,605 based in a school, as of March 4.
Asked what circumstances would prompt MCSD to resume releasing its weekly COVID report, Fox said, “We have continually worked with our Department of Public Health throughout the pandemic. If required, we will provide data as requested.”
Fox noted DPH posts online a weekly “School Aged Surveillance Report” of COVID cases categorized by age group in each county,
“DPH maintains independent information about COVID-19 in our community across many demographics,” she said. “The best source of information has always been the DPH rather than an individual school district, as we only have the information provided to us, while they have information provided from several sources (testing, medical care providers, community, etc.).”
The DPH statistics, however, aren’t broken down by school district.
Harris County superintendent Roger Couch explained HCSD’s rationale for continuing its weekly coronavirus reports.
“While we are glad to see the numbers have fallen so dramatically,” he said in an email to the L-E, “we feel it is best to continue to monitor cases as well as to be transparent by reporting them for the time being.”
HCSD’s most recent coronavirus report showed zero cases from March 15-21 out of 5,550 students and 795 employees.
ChattCo superintendent Kristie Brooks didn’t explained in an email to the L-E that continuing the district’s weekly COVID reports through March will “ensure that our families and community have ample information demonstrating the healthy environments within the schools. This has allowed us time to communicate the changes to our community as well.”
After spring break, Brooks said, ChattCo plans to suspend posting on its website its weekly COVID reports “because we are no longer in a phase of the pandemic that requires such detailed information; however, we are able to respond to any questions if any arise from our school community. Over the past several weeks, our data points for positive cases have consistently declined, and we are confident in moving forward into the new phase of managing in a healthy way.”
ChattCo’s most recent COVID report showed zero cases out of 920 students and 141 employees.
MCSD board member opinions
The L-E asked the nine Muscogee County School Board members whether they agree with the MCSD administration’s decision to suspend its weekly COVID report and why. Out of the five members who replied before publication, their opinions were as varied as the Columbus area school districts.
District 3 representative Vanessa Jackson expressed the strongest opposition to MCSD’s decision among the board members who answered.
MCSD still should publicly release its COVID data each week, Jackson said, to help families — especially those with relatives who are elderly or have compromised immune systems — decide whether it’s safe to send their children to school and whether they should wear a mask.
Jackson said she trusts the superintendent and his advisory medical panel to wisely react to the COVID levels at schools, “but if we don’t see the data, we don’t know if it’s rising or going down.”
Naomi Buckner of District 4 said she hasn’t heard any complaints from constituents about MCSD’s suspension of its COVID report.
“In my own opinion, it’s always good to report data,” she said. “… But I haven’t talked to the superintendent, so it’s not something I would question now.”
Buckner noted the weekly reporting “does require a lot of work” for a large school district like MCSD compared to smaller districts in Harris and Chattahoochee.
MCSD board vice chairwoman Laurie McRae of District 5 said she supports the decision to suspend the weekly COVID report “as long as the numbers stay low.”
McRae said she is confident the administration would publicly report any surge of cases in schools.
District 7 representative Cathy Williams also said she doesn’t have a problem with suspending the weekly COVID report, considering the low levels of coronavirus positivity rate, transmission, hospitalizations and deaths and the additional administrative work it takes to produce the report.
But she cautioned, “We’re looking at a new variant, so we have to be ever vigilant, and we may need to ramp up reporting again.”
District 2 representative Nickie Tillery said she had just returned from being out of town for 10 days and declined to comment until she could get more information about the issue.
MCSD board chairwoman Pat Hugley Green of District 1, Mark Cantrell of District 6, Philip Schley of District 8 and countywide representative Kia Chambers weren’t reached for comment.
Sam Shehane, president of the Muscogee County Council of PTAs, supports MCSD’s decision to suspend its weekly coronavirus report.
“The state has put forth some pretty good guidelines,” she said. “. . . The numbers have decreased. The teachers have enough on their plates to take care of. They’ve been asked to do so much during this pandemic. … If the state deems it not necessary, then I don’t think we need to worry about it either.”
This story was originally published March 22, 2022 at 5:00 AM.
