Should your school reopen? Tarrant County unveils COVID-19 dashboard to help decide
As schools in Tarrant County weigh the options of opening for in-person classes or continuing online learning, Tarrant County Public Health has released a COVID-19 school data dashboard that will suggest what learning scenarios are appropriate for different school zones.
The dashboard is sectioned off by public high school attendance zones and shows coronavirus metrics for each local area, which also includes elementary, middle, charter and private schools, according to a Tarrant County Public Health press release. People can use a drop-down menu and see the coronavirus infection rate in the county, each school district, and high school attendance zones for comparison.
The dashboard can be found at tarrantcounty.com/schoolguidance. Officials will update it every Monday.
“The new dashboard, along with our existing education guidance, is designed to help our school leadership and parents understand their local COVID-19 infection rates so they can make the best decisions for their children,” Tarrant County Public Health Director Vinny Taneja said in the release.
“The data metrics in Tarrant County show that the COVID-19 situation has improved enough in several school zones, shown in yellow, to allow the hybrid model of learning, which couples online virtual learning with in-person learning,” Taneja said.
Some school districts in the county still are in the red zone, which means that virtual learning only is highly recommended.
As of Thursday morning, Tarrant County has reported a total of 42,070 COVID-19 cases, including 560 deaths and an estimated 36,472 recoveries. Recently, the Texas Education Agency announced that starting on Sept. 8 Texas school districts will be required to report COVID-19 cases. The TEA and the Department of State Health Services will collaborate on collecting and updating the data, according to a TEA press release.
The county has set up a COVID-19 tracking web page for schools at tcph.quickbase.com/db/bqraushuu where schools can report cases.
On Sept. 8, Fort Worth ISD is set to start online-only for at least four weeks. Afterward, school officials will decide the next step, whether that be continuing online, moving to hybrid classes or going back to in-person learning.
Fort Worth school officials had previously released a reopening plan where classes would have started Aug. 17 and families could choose either online or in-person instruction for their children. But, they chose to move the start of school to after Labor Day, when health officials warn there could be another spike in cases.
This story was originally published September 3, 2020 at 2:32 PM.
