Duluth Public Schools launches COVID-19 dashboard

Duluth Public Schools launched a COVID-19 dashboard Thursday as a way for the public to monitor cases associated with the district.

The dashboard, available at isd709.org/fall-planning-2020 , lists the number of reported COVID-19 cases among staff and students over the past 14 days. This does not necessarily mean all of these individuals were infectious while in a school building. From Oct. 22 through Nov. 4, seven staff members and five students reported a positive COVID-19 case.

“We want to make sure that we are providing information, but that we’re also doing so in a way that we can make sure it’s timely and accurate as opposed to putting together something that is significantly more detailed that could be outdated fairly quickly,” Superintendent John Magas said. “We also have pretty limited resources, so that is also a factor in what we are trying to do as well.”

According to a presentation given by Magas at a Duluth School Board committee-of-the-whole meeting Wednesday night, since the start of the school year, the district has had 23 positive staff cases and 30 positive student cases with 15 in elementary schools and 15 in secondary schools.

Since the start of the school year, 136 students have been quarantined, with 40 students starting quarantine since Oct. 21. Thirty-eight staff members have quarantined, with two starting quarantine since Oct. 21.

The numbers presented to the board Wednesday night were not included in the dashboard launched Thursday, but may be added later, Magas told the News Tribune.

“I’ll be conferring with the team and we’ll continue to develop the metrics and what data is most pertinent, and what is also beneficial for us and the public,” Magas said, adding that the district dashboard may change over time.

The dashboard also lists St. Louis County and Duluth-area 14-day case rates per 10,000 residents, which is reported by the Minnesota Department of Health and St. Louis County Public Health each week.

Grand Rapids/Bigfork School District also launched a dashboard last week . The district's dashboard lists the number of active COVID-19 cases among students and staff and the number of students and staff currently in quarantine. The dashboard also breaks down the cases by building and the positivity case rate per building.

As of Oct. 29, Grand Rapids/Bigfork School District had seven active student cases and five active staff cases.

Esko Public Schools has had a dashboard since the beginning of the school year . Esko updates its dashboard daily with the number of new cases in the district and the number of active cases. It does not break the number of cases down by students and staff.

While Ely Public Schools doesn't have a dashboard, Ely Superintendent Erik Erie posts a COVID-19 case update weekly on the district's Facebook page.

Esko has had 32 cases in the district since the beginning of the year and Ely had has seven.