TEMPLE, Texas — Central Texas school districts are working to be transparent about COVID-19, but 6 News found that districts in the area are reporting cases in different ways.
Of course cases are going to vary depending on the size of the district, but also what cases the district publicly shares.
"The first week was a pretty thin week in terms of cases but they normally go up in the next two to three weeks," said Dr. Bobby Ott, Temple Independent School District superintendent.
TISD is in its second week of classes and as cases climb in Central Texas, the district reports some of the lowest numbers in Bell County.
According to its dashboard, they've reported 16 total cases as of Sept. 1. While similar sized Belton Independent School District reports nearly 15 times more cases. That's because the two school districts report cases differently.
Dr. Ott said TISD reports only lab confirmed tests on the district's dashboard because that is how the Bell County Health District kept tally last year.
Sticking with similar practices this school year, he thinks makes the process easy for parents.
"The good thing is they see no change. They've already been conditioned. They know what to expect on the dashboard. They know what to expect in terms of letters. Nobody is confused. Nobody is guessing, wondering 'Well does that number mean all positive cases or are some hypothetically,'" Dr. Ott explained.
Belton ISD reports both probable cases and lab confirmed cases on its COVID-19 dashboard. As of Sept.1, the district reports 170 total confirmed cases.
In a statement to 6 News Wednesday, the district said:
"Belton ISD is updating a public dashboard that shows all active cases of students and staff reported to the district. This includes both lab-confirmed and probable positive cases. In addition, some reported active cases on the Belton ISD dashboard represent students or staff who were not on campus while ill but who are currently impacted by COVID-19. We include all reported cases on our dashboard for full transparency with our community."
Killeen ISD is only reporting confirmed lab cases on its COVID-19 dashboard.
"There's no reason to report home tests," said Dr. Ott. "Home tests are not lab confirmed so what does that really do at the end of the day, it may communicate false positives or false negatives so that's why you get it done in a lab confirmed setting."
Through an e-mail letter, Temple ISD is letting parents know of probable cases in classrooms. The probable cases are just not included on the dashboard because Dr. Ott said he doesn't want people to draw conclusions when looking at it.
"If there are people out there that want to see home test results on a dashboard, they won't find them in Temple and we won't budge," Dr. Ott added.
As for McLennan County, a health district spokeswoman told us the school districts make up their own reporting policies.
