MONTGOMERY, Ala. – The Alabama Department of Health (ADPH) and Alabama State Department of Education (ALSDE) on Friday launched the Alabama K-12 COVID-19 School Dashboard (https://bit.ly/31Z4uhd). Cases will be self-reported by Alabama’s public school districts on a weekly basis.
As of Friday, the dashboard showed Cullman City Schools reported 12 cases this week, while Cullman County Schools reported 25.
According to the ADPH:
“The Alabama COVID-19 K-12 Dashboard was developed through a collaboration of the Alabama Department of Public Health (ADPH) and the Alabama State Department of Education (ALSDE) to provide a statewide view of COVID-19 cases and operating status in the K-12 setting. Local education agencies (LEA) are requested to enter the number of new COVID-19 cases among students and employees of which they are aware on a weekly basis. The dashboard provides data at the LEA level to inform the decisions of parents and local officials. It is important to note that it is not indicated or implied that any or all of the cases reported were infected while at school facilities.
“To protect individual privacy, LEAs reporting 1-4 new COVID cases will show ‘<5’ in the display; those numbers will be included in the state level totals. ‘NR’ indicates that there was no reported data from the district for the time period. Decisions regarding reporting this data balance transparency, public health and individual privacy and may change as circumstances change.
“As the data is reported by the LEAs, ADPH and ALSDE are not able to respond to inquiries. Questions about the data should be directed to the specific LEA.”
Disclaimer:
ALSDE and ADPH cannot verify and make no representation regarding the accuracy of the data presented. The data is provisional and subject to change. The data may be different than information presented on the websites and dashboards of individual LEAs or other entities due to timing of reporting or other factors. The data presented here may be different than the data reported to ADPH by laboratories and healthcare providers due to multiple factors and should not be directly compared to information presented by ADPH on the Alabama’s COVID-19 Risk Indicator Dashboard, Alabama’s COVID-19 Data and Surveillance Dashboard and the ADPH website. Data reported herein does not indicate or imply that a positive COVID-19 case was contracted at the school facility.
Frequently Asked Questions:
Q: What information is reported, and who is reporting it?
A: The data presented on this page reflects newly reported COVID-19 cases among students and employees at public K-12 school districts in Alabama. The data are self-reported by local education agencies (LEAs).
Q: How is the data reported to the Alabama Department of Public Health?
A: The data are self-reported on a weekly basis via an application developed in collaboration with the through a collaboration of the Alabama Department of Public Health and the Alabama State Department of Education.
Q: Why is data reported by school district and not by school?
A: To protect individual privacy, the student and employee totals are reported together at the Local Education Agency (LEA) level.
Q: I heard there was a case in my child’s class. Why does that school district show no cases?
A: If a student or employee fails to disclose to the LEA that they have a positive COVID-19 test or have been diagnosed with COVID-19, the LEA will have no way of knowing and communicating that information. Therefore, the information on this report includes only cases of which the LEA has been made aware.
Q: Where can I find information on how many teachers are positive in my child’s school?
A: Individual schools or school districts may individually publish information on employee positive cases. To protect individual privacy, the student and employee totals are reported together at the Local Education Agency (LEA) level on the statewide dashboard.
Q: Does a child have to have a positive laboratory test to be reported as a case?
A: Not necessarily, self-reported cases are included in this particular statewide dashboard.
