Dashboard to track virus in Ind. schools

The Indiana State Department of Health has added a new dashboard to its website to allow residents to see positive coronavirus cases reported among students, teachers and staff in Indiana schools.

The dashboard, released Wednesday evening, reports just over 2,300 positive coronavirus cases throughout the 1,359 Indiana schools that have reported information; 1,448 schools have not yet reported.

“We expect to continue to gather and refine this data in the coming weeks,” State Health Commissioner Dr. Kristina Box said at a press conference Wednesday. “So today’s dashboard should not be seen as a comprehensive overview of school cases.”

As of Thursday morning, the dashboard reported 1,676 positive student cases, 335 positive teacher cases and 343 positive staff cases across the state.

The demographics on the dashboard are filtered by school building, rather than district. Each building has a separate filter, meaning some schools must input several different buildings worth of data.

“Some schools have separate buildings and need to report by building rather than under one umbrella, because students and teachers are never interacting,” Box said.

The dashboard also displays other demographics regarding COVID-19 cases, such as age, gender, race and ethnicity. Currently, it reports 42.3% of positive cases among students are seen in those ages 15-19, while the highest percentage of teacher cases — 24.8% — are reported in those 30-39.

Box said the number of cases reported could drop as some cases may be reported more than once in instances such as juvenile correction facilities or career centers, where cases would be reported by the home school.

Many schools have not yet reported data, and participation in the dashboard is not required at this time.

“If you don’t find your school immediately, don’t be alarmed,” Box said. “We are working with remaining schools to help address technical issues to ensure that they are able to report their data.

“We expect more schools to be included in the dashboard in the coming weeks as we work through this process.”

Some schools throughout Northwest Indiana, such as Munster High School, Crown Point High School and Valparaiso High School, have reported less than five student cases on the dashboard.

When schools have fewer than five cases, the number is suppressed due to privacy laws, Box said.

Before the dashboard, many schools in the area have been reporting cases directly to families in the district, while others, like the Tri- Creek School Corp., send messages to families and post on their Facebook page to alert the community.

The new ISDH dashboard can be found on the coronavirus page of the website.

“This dashboard is still a work in progress,” Box said. “We will continue to refine the data and collect more data.”