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A Kansas high school teacher created what is believed to be the first national database tracking the effects of COVID-19 in K-12 schools, which has now chronicled the spread of the virus in more than 700 schools.
What started as a personal project to allay her anxiety about returning students has evolved into a database of public sources maintained by around 35 volunteers, said Olathe High School theater director Alisha Morris. at the Washington Post.
Morris told the Post that she believed it was the first national database on school epidemics. It includes schools in 41 states, as of Monday afternoon.
“We knew it was going to happen, and we had tried to make it known that it was going to happen, but seeing it on paper was, I think, the revealing part,” Morris told the Post. “It’s just that terrifying moment where you open it up and keep scrolling and you’re like, ‘How can there be so many?'”
The Google Spreadsheet – which is updated every five minutes – reports the total of known cases, suspected cases, individuals quarantined, and deaths in each school reported by school officials or covered by local media. Viewers can follow a link to a form to submit articles or school district announcements.
Schools have become a tipping point in the pandemic, with the Trump administration pushing for schools to reopen while teachers’ unions have raised safety concerns. Negotiations in Congress on a relief bill supposed to include funding to reopen safe schools have stalled.
Several school outbreaks reported on the spreadsheet have already been well documented, such as 23 cases at Georgia High School North Paulding, where several people have tested positive following a viral photo of students walking the halls without masks and more than 100 students in quarantine in Corinth School District of Mississippi.
Morris’s database, however, examines the extent of the problem schools across the country face when they start opening within the next month.
Morris told the Post that she did not intend to broadcast a particular political message with the database.
“My goal is to keep people healthy and to save lives and to provide data that hopefully can help people make data-informed decisions for the future of their schools,” said Morris.
Morris will begin teaching her own classes – which she has decided to hold online – on Tuesday, giving her less time to update the database, according to the Post. She said she hopes another person or organization will take charge of updating the spreadsheet.
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