In many places, schools have again adopted a clear partisan tendency, with President Trump and Republican administrators such as Ron DeSantis of Florida urging personal instruction. A constant stream of information about positive cases in classrooms and quarantine students could hamper those efforts, experts said.
“If schools have to close after students test positive, the policy does not look good for administrators and legislators who have called for it to open,” said Clay Calvert, director of the Marion B. Brechner First Amendment project at the University of Florida. “That there is potential to hide behind privacy laws.
“There are certainly battle lines drawn, and the release of information could sway public opinion.”
Indeed, some states have seen growing concerns after school doors opened and infections were reported immediately. In Georgia, nearly 2,500 students and 62 staff members in the Cherokee County School District have been ordered to quarantine, while 71 of 82 counties in Mississippi have reported cases at schools.
State notification policies vary widely across the country. Officials in Colorado and North Carolina report which schools have had positive cases, while Louisiana, which had not previously identified specific schools with outbreaks, said this week that it has created a new system to report “relevant Covid-19 data efficiently” in schools for greater public visibility. ”
At the other end of the spectrum, Oklahoma does not require school districts to report Covid-19 cases to health departments. And some states that do, including Maine, say privacy concerns prevent officials from sharing these details with the public. Tennessee this week supported a previous governor’s commitment to link the number of cases to schools, and provided only information by county.
In Virginia, state law prohibits the health department from disclosing cases at specific facilities, including schools, said Tammie Smith, a spokeswoman for the state health commissioner. The commissioner had originally said the same thing about nursing homes, but was later ordered to release the data by Gov. Ralph Northam after a public shock.
