Madison Schools Community members,
I hope this message finds all of you healthy and well after a long Thanksgiving weekend.
In response to feedback from our community and Restart Committee, the district has designed a new COVID-19 dashboard to provide real-time information regarding positive cases impacting our schools. This data can be accessed under "Reopening Information" and includes staff and student cases to date by school and district. A data table is also provided, indicating the activity levels impacting our schools. The weekly cases impacting the district are also converted to a new case rate per 100k for comparison purposes to regional case rate levels. Please note that this analysis shows that our school community is experiencing rates that are similar, if not elevated, as compared to our region. My message from November 25 which indicated that we were faring better than the region has been revised accordingly.
While our recommendation to the community has always been to engage in responsible and healthy behaviors, this data increases the urgency of this message.
Additionally, please be reminded that the district will no longer be sending direct messages regarding new cases. Instead we will update the dashboard in real-time and provide a new weekly COVID-19 update message system that will begin on December 7. This weekly update will provide regular guidance and updates to the community regarding health data trends and new developments.
Please remain safe so that we can all stay Madison Strong.
Sincerely,
Mark Schwarz