Released Data Shed Light On COVID-19 At Oconee County Schools

Just less than a third of the positive tests for COVID-19 in Oconee County Schools since administrators began recording those data in early September through the first of this month have been for faculty and staff.

Faculty and staff made up more than half of the positive tests reported at the system’s six elementary schools and single primary school, about a quarter of the cases at the two middle schools, and nearly one in five of the cases at the two high schools.

When staff, faculty, and student cases are combined, 32.0 percent of all of the positive tests at the schools going back to Aug. 15 have been at the six elementary schools and the single primary school, 27.8 percent have been at the two middle schools, and 40.2 percent have been at the two high schools.

These analysis are based on data released to a parent of students in Oconee County Schools who filed an open records request for the information.

Oconee County Schools only provides numbers of Active Cases and Active Quarantines in its Weekly Status Report released each Friday and does not characterize the individuals who test positive each week or identify the schools where the positive tests are recorded.

The data released to the parent are limited, but they do list cases by school and differentiate between students and others who tested positive at the schools.

As such, they provide more detail about how COVID-19 has been present in the schools this year than has been available in the past and speak to concerns that parents have raised before the Board of Education about student, faculty and staff welfare.

For further analysis of the data released in response to the open records request and an explanation of the circumstances surrounding that release, pleases go to Oconee County Observations.