More than 100 N.J. schools have reported COVID-19 cases, according to data collected by teachers – NJ.com

Find all of the most important pandemic education news on Educating N.J., a special resource guide created for parents, students and educators.

While New Jersey officials have not announced the total number of COVID-19 cases in the states schools, data self-reported by educators themselves shows at least 100 schools have teachers or students who have tested positive for the coronavirus.

The National Education Association, the parent group of the NJEA and other teachers' unions around the country, recently launched a website for educators around the nation to report when there is a confirmed COVID-19 case in their schools.

NEAs goal is to use this data to protect educators, students and their families from unsafe reopening policies, as well as to shine a light on the complete failure of policymakers to listen to educators' and parents' warnings about reopening schools and campuses with no plan or regard for student and faculty safety, the group said.

As of Wednesday, there were 130 New Jersey schools on the list, though a few appeared to be possible duplicates or cases reported over the summer before the start of the current school year. All had links to news stories, school websites or other documents reporting the positive cases.

The NEA staff regularly reviews and verifies the crowdsourced data, the group said.

In New Jersey, there has been no comprehensive, public effort to track the total number of coronavirus cases reported in the states 2,500 public schools or in more than 1,000 private and religious K-12 schools.

Gov. Phil Murphy and state officials unveiled a new schools dashboard on the states coronavirus information hub at covid19.nj.gov last week. It showed there have been 11 coronavirus outbreaks in schools traced to in-school transmission of the virus. Those outbreaks included 43 cases.

However, the dashboard is only broken down by county and does not include the names of the schools. It also didnt identify the school districts, when the outbreaks were reported or any other details.

New Jersey has released a dashboard on its COVID-19 website tracking in-school outbreaks of the coronavirus. The dashboard only records cases where health officials believe students and teachers transmitted the virus on school grounds or in extracurricular activities.

The dashboard only gives a glimpse into the number of cases reported in the states schools because it only counts cases in which a local health department investigation has concluded the student or teacher caught or transmitted the virus on school property or in extracurricular activities. It does not include cases in which students or teachers tested positive after contracting COVID-19 from family members, friends, at parties or at events outside of school.

State health officials said they are releasing limited information about coronavirus cases in schools for privacy reasons.

As the Governor said at the briefing when the dashboard was rolled out, we are presenting the data this way to protect the privacy of those in our school communities, said Dawn Thomas, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Health.

An outbreak is considered two or more laboratory confirmed COVID-19 cases among students or staff with onsets within a 14-day period which are epidemiologically linked within the school setting, do not share a household, and were not identified as close contacts of each other in another setting during case investigation or contact tracing, Thomas said.

The state Health Department has no plans to track the total number of coronavirus cases reported in schools.

Since COVID-19 is spreading in the community, it is to be expected that some people who test positive will be students and staff. So a case among a student or staff member doesnt always indicate transmission at school, Thomas said.

The state released the outbreak data as more New Jersey schools that began the school year all-remote are preparing to switch to hybrid plans combining at-home and in-class learning.

Nationwide, teachers and parents have expressed frustration about the lack of information about how widespread the coronavirus is in schools. Neither the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention nor the federal Department of Education is tracking COVID-19 cases in schools or colleges.

Some states and schools districts have declined to release any information about positive COVID-19 tests for students and teachers, citing health and privacy laws. Indiana, Tennessee and Florida are among the states that have been criticized for holding back or limiting information about coronavirus cases in schools.

Some local news organizations, including NJ Advance Media, have compiled updated lists of schools that have publicly announced closures related to positive coronavirus cases. But it is difficult to gather all the information in states with thousands of schools, including private schools that are less likely to announce cases publicly.

Some educators have turned to crowdsourcing to gather the information. A teachers' union in Texas started a StoptheSpreadTX.school website that has received 1,750 reports of more positive cases and safety violations in schools in their state.

A Kansas high school teacher started a national database of positive cases in schools from her sofa in early August after failing to find anyone else tracking the data. Her spreadsheet was eventually taken over by the National Education Association after she and a group of volunteers had found and logged reports of 4,300 positive cases at more than 1,000 schools by the end of August.

That spreadsheet became the NEA School and Campus COVID-19 Reporting Site that now includes the more than 100 schools that have reported COVID-19 cases in New Jersey. Other states, including Florida, Pennsylvania and Texas, have hundreds of schools with positive cases, according to the site.

Under New Jerseys guidelines, public schools are only required to notify the families of students in individual classrooms or schools when a teacher or student tests positive for COVID-19. It is up to local health officials to notify the wider community if they think an alert is warranted.

Schools with one or two positive COVID-19 cases can stay open if the cases appear to be unrelated, though students and teachers who were in close contact with the infected person should be asked to stay home for 14 days, the state guidelines say. A school should close for two weeks if there are two or more cases in different classrooms with no clear link between them.

Many New Jersey schools have gone beyond the guidelines and temporarily switched to remote learning as soon as a case has been reported in a school.

Though the level of reporting and the decision on whether to close has varied from district to district, the governor said parents and students should be confident they will be notified if there has been an outbreak in their school.

If youre in the school, believe me, you know it, Murphy said last week.

Thank you for relying on us to provide the journalism you can trust. Please consider supporting NJ.com with a subscription.

Kelly Heyboer may be reached at kheyboer@njadvancemedia.com.

Excerpt from:

More than 100 N.J. schools have reported COVID-19 cases, according to data collected by teachers - NJ.com