Working for Districts: CNYRIC provides essential help with contract tracing

When schools reopened their doors in the fall of 2020, administrators struggled with the need to provide effective contact tracing, often spending extensive amounts of time trying to reach anyone who had come in close contact with an individual who had tested positive for the novel coronavirus. Districts often had to pull up class lists and cross-reference them by hand, spending as much as half the workday trying to effectively trace one positive result. 

Enter the Educational Data Services (EDS) team at the Central New York Regional Information Center. The EDS team wanted to help districts tackle whatever challenges they faced with reopening schools. Over the summer, EDS sent out a survey, asking districts what they needed most.

"After speaking with a few districts, we determined that contact tracing was a project they badly needed help with," said School District Data Coordinator Marc Crouse, who later facilitated the project.

The help from EDS revolved around SchoolTool, a student information system used by districts across the country. For the full story, which details the process and how effectively EDS worked with its district customers, please go to this feature article on the CNYRIC website.