Ohio State tool helping schools spot signs of virus outbreaks

A cluster of teachers is absent. Students with runny noses and body aches are frequenting the nurse’s office. And in the boundaries of a nearby school district, cases of COVID-19 are skyrocketing among children.

Individually, these hypothetical situations might go undetected. But when monitored together, they could serve as early warning signs that officials could use to curb a COVID-19 outbreak.

A new tool programmed by Ohio State University called the CATS dashboard — the acronym stands for COVID-19 Analytics and Targeted Surveillance — is responsible for pulling all the new, granular data into one place.

Using the dashboard, school leaders can now monitor data that’s specific to their districts, including student and staff absences, nurse visits by students with flu-like symptoms and COVID-19 cases among people living in their district boundaries.

If they’re seeing statistics that aren’t too out of the ordinary, the dashboard also gives them the confidence to know they’re operating safely.

That’s been the case in the Whitehall school district, Superintendent Brian Hamler said.

Though Franklin County is under a “red” Level 3 coronavirus alert, according to the state’s four-tiered system, and possibly nearing a “purple,” or Level 4, designation, the data specifically within the Whitehall community doesn’t appear to be a cause for alarm, he said.

“When you look at Whitehall particularly, it doesn’t match the state’s language of a ‘purple’ situation, of extreme spread,” Hamler said. “In fact, our staff attendance is better now than it usually is in a non-COVID year.”

The district started the school year with completely online classes, but some in-person classes resumed Sept.

21. Its dashboard launched about three weeks ago.

Since resuming classes, two staff members and 21 students have contracted COVID-19 in the district, which enrolls about 3,200 students.

“We’re still paying attention to what’s happening in the county and the state,” Hamler said. “But now we can look at multiple data sources, instead of relying on just one.”

The Hilliard school district, one of the first in the area to bring children back into buildings this school year, on Aug. 31, was the first to pilot the CATS dashboard in early August.

Superintendent John Marschhausen said the partnership with Ohio State was a crucial part of planning when and how to return to classes. Previously, most of the data available to the public listed only figures at the countywide level, he said.

Ayaz Hyder, the Ohio State assistant professor of public health who spearheaded the project, lives in Hilliard and initiated the connection.

“We started talking over the summer about what would be helpful during the decision-making process,” Marschhausen said. “I said, ‘We need local data, but we just don’t see it yet.’”

Nine other Franklin County districts — Bexley, Dublin, Grandview Heights, Groveport Madison, New Albany, Upper Arlington, Westerville, Whitehall and Worthington — have since launched their own dashboards.

The Educational Service Center of Central Ohio has provided $202,000 to fund the project, which will pay for staffing.

Four other districts, including Columbus City Schools, are in the process of signing on, and initial conversations have started with five additional districts in Delaware, Licking, Marion, Morrow and Union counties.

From his home in the University District, Ohio State University junior Pranav Padmanabhan, 20, spends his time between classes helping new districts become part of the system.

Padmanabhan, a student research assistant studying geography and public health, digitally maps a school district’s boundaries and links them to data from local health departments about the populations living in them.

Once they’re plugged into the system, school leaders can input their own data about staff and students, which is automatically populated in the dashboard into easy-to-read charts, he said.

They also can be embedded on a school website so the public can view the information, which the Hilliard and Whitehall districts have done.

“It’s really rewarding, seeing districts making decisions based on this data, and hearing it’s helpful,” said Padmanabhan, one of three students involved with the project. “We’re having some of the same conversations public health experts around the world are having right now.”

If a troubling trend is detected, the dashboard allows districts to make moves proactively, such as shutting down buildings — though, so far, there fortunately have been few examples of COVID-19 transmission originating in Columbus-area schools, Franklin County Public Health Commissioner Joe Mazzola said last week. He attributes that to students spreading out and wearing masks and buildings operating at a reduced capacity.

Overall, state officials have imposed few restrictions on how schools can operate during the pandemic, only mandating students and employees wear masks.

That leaves the decision-making up to superintendents, who, understandably, aren’t trained in epidemiology, said Anne Trinh, a senior program manager in Ohio State University’s College of Public Health research centers.

“In the beginning, I think they felt left in the dark,” Trinh said. “I hope they feel more empowered now to prevent and control the spread of disease in their buildings.”

Trinh said she hopes to get as many schools as possible involved as COVID-19 cases continue to surge, increasing the likelihood of the virus entering schools.

On Friday, Ohio broke another daily record with 8,071 new cases.

Once the pandemic has ended, the system could be used to detect other illnesses, such as the seasonal flu, she said.

The dashboard will be especially useful in a large district such as Columbus City Schools, where situations could vary greatly in its 110 schools, Superintendent Talisa Dixon said.

Students are currently learning online from home, an arrangement that will continue through at least Jan. 15, 2021. Ideally, the dashboard should be operating within the next six weeks.

The district is divided into six regions, each with its own leadership that reports to Dixon.

When students eventually return to buildings, the CATS dashboard could help guide decisions within a specific region, or on a building-by-building basis, rather than districtwide, she said.

The dashboard will also help school leaders communicate those decisions more effectively, with data to back it up, she said.

“As K-12 experts trying to interpret what’s happening with this virus, I think that’s what’s most helpful about this partnership,” Dixon said.

“This system will allow us to make targeted decisions about what’s best for students, faculty and staff.” awidmanneese@dispatch.com

@AlissaWidman