PALM BEACH COUNTY, Fla. — By now, Palm Beach County parents have decided whether their child will spend the rest of the semester doing in-person or remote learning.
The deadline to decide was Wednesday, but many parents have also voiced their concerns about the delay in knowing when their child’s school has a positive case of COVID-19.
You may have received a robocall or a letter from your child's school if there was a positive case of COVID-19 at the school.
But many parents and teachers have gone on social media to vent about why, many times, those numbers are not being reflected on the School District of Palm Beach County's COVID-19 dashboard.
The school district said the dashboard is updated every night with the confirmed cases.
Many teachers, some who don't want to speak on the record, said they know about cases at their school that go days without showing up on the dashboard, and in some cases, even a week or longer.
On the district’s website, it shares that any parents with children who have been exposed to someone with a confirmed case of COVID-19 are notified by the health department. Employees are notified by the school district's risk management department.
After that initial notification, then a mass message will be sent out to parents and staff.
All of that happens before the case shows up on the dashboard.
One Palm Beach County who wanted to remain anonymous said he received a robocall about a positive case at the school he teaches at, but the school district's COVID-19 dashboard didn't reflect that case until 24 hours later.
"We got a message on the 13th, telling us that somebody was on campus as late as the 9th. So what happened between the 9th and 13th?" the teacher said. "And why weren’t we informed until the 13th? Why didn’t it make it to the dashboard until the 14th? So, it’s things along those lines where we see a lot of gaps in the timeline."
The School District of Palm Beach County said it is planning to announce changes to the COVID-19 dashboard on Friday.
Palm Beach School Board Chairman Frank Barbieri posted on Facebook Thursday night that starting Monday the dashboard will be updated twice daily at 10 a.m. and at 10 p.m.
