GREENWOOD VILLAGE | The Cherry Creek School District’s COVID-19 dashboard has been below the level recommended for in-person schooling for the past two days. The district says the dip is due to a reporting anomaly in the Tri-County Health Department’s data.
The district tracks six health measures related to COVID-19 pulled from Tri-County data on a 0-2 scale for a total of 12 points. A score of five or below indicates that the district should be in the remote learning phase, though a one to two week data trend is needed for a change to be made.
On Friday, the tracker metric was lowered to “4.”
“Due to a delay in reporting by a large local health care provider, a significant amount of past data was dumped into the Tri-County Health Department reporting system this week,” a message on the district’s website reads. “This data is impacting the Cherry Creek COVID Tracker dashboard. The data was not reported at the time it was collected, and so it looks like an influx of positive cases all at once, when really the cases occurred over the past month.”
Cherry Creek is still holding in-person classes through a hybrid model as cases in the metro area continue to rise. Surrounding districts, including Aurora Public Schools and Denver Public Schools, have reversed course and sent most or all of their students back to online learning.
On Wednesday the tracker had a score of five, and on Thursday a score of four. The four variables that track COVID-19 in Arapahoe County all have a score of zero. The variables that track COVID-19 in students and staff both have a score of two, though it is unclear how many students and staff are regularly tested.
The district is working with Tri-County to determine how the data dump is affecting the dashboard.
Cherry Creek spokesperson Abbe Smith said that the district believes that the delay in reporting is a factor in the tracker taking a dip, and it is closely monitoring the numbers to see if they go back up.
A note on the Tri-County Health Department’s website says that it is experiencing data irregularities due to delayed reporting from a large local healthcare provider, and another note that says this could lead to inconsistent results in cases from Oct. 23 to Oct. 27.
The department does not believe that any delayed data is currently coming in, spokesperson Callie Preheim said. Monday, Nov. 9 will be the first day the 14-day incidence rate is not affected by the irregularity.
It’s hard to know how big on an impact the data dump had on Cherry Creek’s dashboard, she said.
“It’s important to keep in mind test positivity and incidence had been increasing anyway,” Preheim said. “I wouldn’t expect that trend to differ.”