Parents seeking more transparency about how the virus is operating in St. Vrain Valley School District say an updated COVID-19 dashboard is a solid first step but there is still room for improvement in the data provided via daily website updates.
The dashboard — which now includes information about the number of quarantines in the district — still lacks important details compared to other school districts in the state, said Laura Ruth of the SVVSD Parent Teacher Support Network During COVID.
The St. Vrain quarantine breakdown is for the entire district and not broken down by school.
However, other districts are including such detail, including Adams 12 Five Star School District, whose dashboard features each school’s quarantine numbers — both students and adults — and the length of the quarantine period. Boulder Valley School District’s coronavirus dashboard also includes a breakdown by school of students and staff who are quarantined and dates on which the quarantines will end. Aurora Public School’s COVID-19 dashboard lists the dates of a positive test or exposure for each school or site, the number of students and staff exposed and when the student cohort can return to school.
Ruth in an email said her group told St. Vrain administrators about their concerns over COVID-19 openness at a recent meeting.
“We expressed that the most important tool the district can give us as parents, teachers and staff is real numbers that let us make decisions that are best for each of us,” she said in her email.
“Transparency and communication are key,” she added. “We would all like to be more involved in the process and receive regular communications about how decisions are being made. Adding quarantine numbers is a good first step, but we would like to see them further broken down.”
When asked about the district's adding quarantine information to the dashboard, St. Vrain Valley District spokesperson Kerri McDermid sent a link to the district’s current quarantine data. McDermid didn’t indicate if the district would be adding more information to that section.
Parent Mia McCloy in an email said members of the parent group, which included Ruth, convinced the district to share quarantine numbers. But the districtwide quarantine breakdown doesn’t tell the whole story about the potential impacts of COVID-19 on schools, she said.
McCloy said she was told by Superintendent Don Haddad two weeks ago that if she wanted to know the quarantine numbers for a school, to either call the principal of the school or to call Haddad.
Last week, several people tried to get the quarantine numbers from Silver Creek High School and McCloy said their requests were declined.
“The lack of transparency and the nickel-and-diming for this relevant information is incredibly frustrating and is really diminishing our trust in the district,” she said.
