COVID-19 cases, exposures cost thousands of CCSD students school days

Hundreds if not thousands of Clark County School District students were forced to miss school on select days during the first month of in-person instruction after COVID-19 infections or exposures, data obtained by the Review-Journal show.

District reports obtained through public records requests provide the first glimpse of the numbers of students “excluded” from attending school in-person on a given day, data that the public school system does not publicly report.

They show that between 800 and more than 7,000 students were either in quarantine or isolation Aug. 9, 16, 23 and 30 and Sept. 7 after the broad resumption of in-person instruction.

Two district spokesmen emphasized Monday the numbers in the daily snapshots were based on data queries and are estimates — not definitive numbers. They also said the reports contained working numbers that could change as more information was obtained.

Once a COVID-19 case is confirmed, that information appears on the district’s online case tracker website, they said, noting that’s why the district relies heavily on confirmed cases on its dashboard rather than exclusion data.

Critics see lack of transparency

School district officials have faced criticism from some parents and employees who say there’s not enough transparency with information about how school campuses are being impacted by COVID-19 cases and exclusions to enable them to make informed decisions.

Many also have complained about the exclusions, which can force them to miss work and are seen as disruptive to their children, even though students are supposed to be provided with some form of distance education while they’re required to remain at home.

For example, the school district doesn’t include exclusion numbers on its online COVID-19 case dashboard. Superintendent Jesus Jara previously told the Review-Journal that the quarantine numbers were withheld out of privacy concerns.

The reports show that the number of exclusions quickly climbed once the fall semester began.

On the first day of school, 816 students were excluded from school district campuses due to positive COVID-19 tests or exposures. That number jumped to 2,456 a week later.

By Aug. 23, 7,530 were excluded from district schools, or 2.47 percent of the roughly 304,000 students attending district schools. The number was similar for Aug. 30, with 7,338 exclusions.

In the most recent report obtained by Review-Journal, for Sept. 7, the day after Labor Day, the number of students affected dropped to 4,472.

The reports do not state whether the infections or exposures were believed to have occurred on campuses, and the figures may include students participating in distance learning options at a dozen schools or via the school district’s online Nevada Learning Academy at CCSD. Some students may also be listed in multiple reports if their exclusion spanned more than one week.

Staff numbers not included

Nor do the reports address the number of staff — including teachers — who were excluded on the selected dates.

What’s the difference between quarantine and isolation? The school district uses the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s definitions, a district spokesman said.

A quarantine means a student was deemed a close contact with someone who tested positive for COVID-19. An isolation means the student was sick and thought or knew they had COVID-19, or tested positive but didn’t have symptoms.

The reports obtained by the Review-Journal include a by-campus breakdown of the number of quarantines and isolations.

The largest number of quarantines by far was at Lamping Elementary School in Henderson, affecting 679 students on Aug. 23 and 663 students on Aug. 30.

The number of isolations at Lamping was redacted from reports because fewer than 10 students were affected.

Lamping Elementary switched to full distance education on Aug. 17 for a couple of weeks due to an unknown number of COVID-19 cases at the school. The school resumed in-person classes later that month.

The school district’s online case dashboard shows 17 COVID-19 cases have been reported at Lamping Elementary since July 1.

Manch Elementary School near Nellis Air Force Base also had a large number of student quarantines — 700 — listed for Aug. 23. No public announcement of the high number of exclusions and the number of isolations was redacted from the report obtained by the Review-Journal.

The school district spokesmen didn’t have specifics on the exclusions at Manch, but one said Lamping Elementary is the only school district campus that has operated temporarily under distance education this school year.

The district’s online case dashboard on Monday showed 26 reported COVID-19 cases at Manch Elementary since July 1.

It also reported a total of 3,287 COVID-19 cases for the period. Of those, 2,141 were among students and the rest affected employees, according to the dashboard.

Which child was exposed?

North Las Vegas parent Danielle Smith, who has five children in CCSD schools, ranging from a preschooler to an eighth-grader, said she was notified in August that one of her children was deemed a close contact of a confirmed COVID-19 case and needed to quarantine.

She said she received a “pretty vague” message the night of Aug. 15, a Sunday, saying there had been a positive COVID-19 case at the elementary school where two of her children are enrolled.

She received additional messages, including one saying her student had been identified as a close contact, but she didn’t immediately know which one of her kids it was referring to because it didn’t identify the student who tested positive.

“I wasn’t sure which student they were referring to when I got this,” she said.

The following school day, Smith called the school and found out her son in third grade was deemed a close contact.

Smith said she had already decided to keep all of her children home as a precaution. All of her children later tested negative for COVID-19, she said.

She said her children participated in distance education during that time, but she said it wasn’t a productive experience. Some received synchronous instruction via live video lessons, while others were given work to do on their own.

Contact Julie Wootton-Greener at jgreener@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-2921. Follow @julieswootton on Twitter.