Several Central Texas school districts no longer updating COVID-19 case dashboards
AUSTIN (KXAN) — While some Austin-area school districts are still updating their COVID-19 case dashboards to track student and teacher cases, other local districts have stopped updating their dashboards after two full school years during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Texas schools are no longer required to report cases on school campuses to the state, the Texas Department of State Health Services’ website reads. The last dashboard update was for the week ending July 31.
Several school districts continue to update their COVID dashboards. Austin, Round Rock, Manor, Lake Travis, Eanes, Del Valle and Leander ISDs show updated daily or weekly data.
"In the interest of transparency and in an effort to provide our community with a current snapshot of COVID-19 positive cases on our campuses and district facilities, we will once again maintain a public dashboard on our website during the 2022-2023 school year," Lake Travis ISD's website says.
Pflugerville ISD, Georgetown ISD, Dripping Springs ISD, Hutto ISD, Marble Falls ISD and Hays CISD have not updated their online dashboards.
Hays CISD said it is not keeping a separate dashboard from the Hays County case tracker. "The district has tracked at, or slightly below, the county infection rates so those rates are a good indicator of the district status," the HCISD website reads.
A Hays district spokesperson said if there is a significant spike or new variant, the district would be able to start a new dashboard "if there is enough demand for that from our parents, staff and students."
In Georgetown ISD, the district said it will not have a dashboard for the 2022-23 school year, but it will still report cases to the state. "GISD will continue to notify families and staff if they may have come in contact with a COVID-positive individual at one of our facilities," the district website read.
The University of Texas COVID-19 Modeling Consortium shows 52% fewer infections over the past 14 days. The probability that the epidemic is growing is 4% as of the Aug. 22 update.
On Friday, the federal COVID-19 at-home testing program will end “because Congress hasn’t provided additional funding to replenish the nation’s stockpile of tests,” the COVID.gov website reads.