All public and private PreK-12 schools in Connecticut are required to report any student OR staff person with a new positive test for COVID-19, which means they are infected with COVID-19.  Testing may or may not be done at the school.  Some schools offer COVID-19 tests, but the tests are often done outside the school by the person’s healthcare provider or at a community COVID-19 testing site.

The reporting is made to the State of Connecticut Department of Public Health (CT DPH) as required by state law (Connecticut General Statues 19a-215).  Under state law it is confidential (Connecticut General Statues 19a-25).

A student is any student enrolled at the school, regardless of which town they live in.  Students are reported regardless of the COVID-19-response learning model they are following:

·         total distance learning with no time in the school building, or

·         hybrid learning blending in person and distance learning, or

·         fully in-person learning in the school building. 

 The student’s grade level, depending on the school, can be from prekindergarten through Grade 12 of High School.  Special education students are included. 

Staff are employees or contractors that work at the school, such as teachers, custodial staff, clerical, bus transport, food service, administrators.  They may or may not work directly with students.  Administrative staff that work in a central district office who do not spend time in any school buildings are not included.

The data does not show where the student or staff got infected.  Investigations to date have shown the great majority of students or staff are getting infected in the community outside of the school.

These data will be updated weekly each Thursday.  The reporting period is Thursday - Wednesday. 

Data presented below are the total of all student and staff cases reported for a school for the previous week, Thursday – Wednesday.  If no cases were reported, 0 cases are displayed.  If a school reported 1-5 cases, <6 is displayed.  If 6 or more cases were reported, the exact number is displayed.  In order to ensure confidentiality, data are suppressed for all schools reporting 1-5 cases for a particular reporting period.

These data will be updated weekly each Thursday.  The reporting period is Thursday – Wednesday and any data reported to CT DPH for that period received before posting is included.  Some schools post their own data on their website.  If the school’s data differs from this data, it is likely due to differences in reporting periods.  Additionally, these data are considered preliminary and are subject to change.  Data from previous dates are routinely updated.

CT DPH in partnership with the CT Office of Policy and Management (CT OPM) publishes data on the state's Open Data Portal.  For data on COVID-19 in PK-12 public and private schools, please see the following datasets: