New COVID19 logo

MOULTRIE, Ga. — The addition of a self-reporting tool on the Colquitt County School System’s website has helped the system keep better track of COVID cases, according to a system spokeswoman.

The COVID self reporting tool was first implemented on the school system’s website at the beginning of the 2021-2022 school year. It can be found on their website under the “COVID-19 weekly update” tab on the top most section of the page.

Angela Hobby, chief communications officer for the school system, said the tool should help take off some of the strain school nurses experienced last year.

“Previously nurses were getting emails, phone calls, texts, etc. at all hours of the day and every day of the week,” Hobby said in an email conversation Wednesday morning. “It was a lot to manage. The new online reporting form sends an email notification to the correct nurse based on school location when a report is submitted.

Hobby said from there, the process is the same as last year.

“Once the nurses get a report, they are still following DPH procedures on contacting the person, asking additional questions, and if warranted, contacting others that the individual was around if they were around other students or staff… The nurses are communicating and reporting cases to DPH every day just as they did in the past,” Hobby stated.

The school’s most recent policy for quarantining was outlined in its COVID-19 Return to School Guidelines, which was last updated on Aug. 4. The guidelines for this year include policies for vaccinated contacts and “new guidelines on who is quarantined,” according to Hobby.

“Some reports do not warrant contact tracing as the individual may not have been in contact with anyone related to the school in the days prior to the report,” Hobby said.

Both school administration and nursing staff have been working to keep any student or employee who may have had contact with potentially positive or positive cases, according to Hobby.

This is the first week that both Willie J Williams Middle School and C.A. Gray Junior High School returned to normal classes after they were placed on hybrid schedules on Aug. 30. In the district’s most recent COVID-19 weekly update, released on Sept. 13 for the week ending Sept. 10, 66 students and 13 staff were reported positive in the county. In the prior report for the week of Sept. 3, there were 164 positive students and 13 positive staff.

“The cases across the board have drastically declined specifically at Willie J. Williams and C.A. Gray,” Hobby stated in a previous article in The Observer. 

She further said that administration is tracking each school’s cases daily to look for trends that need to be addressed such as the increased cases seen at Williams and Gray. This led to the district’s decision to move to the temporary hybrid schedule. 

“Other trends may show a cluster of cases in one grade, one building or one classroom. All of these are monitored daily,” Hobby said.

So far the self-reporting tool has been a success, she said. As the preferred method of COVID communication, school nurses are able to streamline the process and provide effective responsiveness.

“(The COVID reporting tool) is the preferred method to report… Everything is more streamlined and easy to follow and process,” Hobby continued.

Hobby concluded saying that CCSS has made a push to keep all students, parents and staff informed on the availability of the tool and when it should be used.

“The link is shared using REMIND to students and parents along with other general reminders. The link has also been shared multiple times on social media by the district and schools. It has been shared in internal communication with staff on several occasions. The school nurses were given a template for an automatic email reply for hours they are not in the office that has the link and directions for submitting. We will continue to share the link when appropriate and combine with other general reminders on all platforms available.”