Lincoln-Way High School District 210 sent an email to parents informing them of the new COVID-19 case tracker on its website.
The tracker can be found on the district’s homepage, lw210.org. The graphic tracks each school’s case numbers and will be updated daily, Superintendent Scott Tingley said.
As of Friday – when the graphic went live – there were 15 active cases across the district, which includes faculty, staff and students. There are 7,275 total staff and students.
Lincoln-Way Central has seven active cases, Lincoln-Way East has six active cases, and Lincoln-Way West has two active cases, according to the district website.
“We are also sending letters home to any student who would have been in a classroom with a student who tested positive,” Tingley said. “But if there is anyone that came in close contact of 6 feet for 15 minutes or more, we make direct contact with a parent to notify them.”
That student will have to quarantine for 14 days before returning to school, Tingley said.
If a student calls to tell the school they tested positive, an email is sent to all teachers asking whether they or any student came in close contact with the student who tested positive in the past 48 hours.
The district fills out a form and its district representative, Rob Schiffbauer, who sends that data to the Will County Health Department, follows up with the student to confirm and takes it from there, Tingley said.
The district does the initial screening and supplies Will County with the names of students who may have been in close contact.
“We’ve also asked for contact outside of school and excluded students who had contact outside of school,” Tingley said. “We’re doing that out of an abundance of caution, obviously.”
Cases are on the rise in the county, according to the chart on the district website, and Tingley said they are being monitored closely.
“We continue to learn, and it is quite the process,” he said. “There’s certainly challenges, but I do think we are moving well.”