Contact Tracing and COVID-19 School Safety Reporting

The Challenge

Norridge School District 80 in Illinois wanted to provide a safe and healthy learning environment for students and staff during the COVID-19 pandemic. Like many schools throughout the country, the district was also affected by the national spread of COVID-19. The school district needed a way to provide a safe learning environment and ensure that students and staff who have or have been exposed to COVID-19 are not allowed to come to school.

When resuming on-campus learning, the district decided to use CrisisGo’s Safety iPass solution to ease any hesitation that family and staff had about returning to in-person learning. The school district was particularly interested in utilizing Safety iPass to keep track of pandemic safety information and manage a safe entry process. With Safety iPass, Norridge School District 80 sought to leverage daily reports for COVID-19 diagnoses and contact tracing, utilize daily and weekly communications to the health department and school community, and quickly scan all in-person students from their hybrid learning program through a reliable entry procedure.

The Solution

Bob Diedke is the Dean of Students for Norridge School District 80, and he oversees the COVID Response Team for Norridge School District 80. He stated, “From day 1, I presented to the Board of Education the process that we would be going through to certify our student, staff, and any guests that would enter our building to create a safe COVID-free environment.”

While school districts can set up their own entry management procedures that work best for their schools, Norridge has established a great example of a safe and efficient approach. Each morning, parents and staff receive an email at 5 am requesting individuals to self-certify. The link is student/staff specific, so if for some reason an individual does not receive the email, they may reference an old email to still self-certify. Once parents/staff certify, they get a colored badge. Green allows entry, red means at risk and access denied, orange means quarantine and entry denied, blue means remote learner and entry denied, and grey means uncertified.

Norridge has an entrance for each grade level in the Jr. High building. The 5th entrance is a restricted access entrance with a staff member who certifies all students that arrive on campus uncertified (grey) or who show up with a Red, Orange, or blue badge. Red and Orange badge students are escorted to the quarantine room for further assessment and a phone call home from our nurse. Blue badges are for remote students, so those students are sent home to learn remotely.

Each student has an ID with a QR code, and there are 2 to 3 staff members at each entrance that scan student ID's and take student temperature. To avoid HIPAA requirements, they only ask parents on the app if their child has a fever (100.4 or greater). They do not ask for the actual temperature so that it does not become a medical record. When they take temperatures on-site, they do not collect the actual temperature data. If a student has a temperature, that student is directed to the restricted access door. All doors are within the back courtyard. Throughout both buildings, there are visual signs reminding staff and students to maintain proper social distance and wear a mask. All doors have signs regarding our protocols and that all individuals entering must wear a mask.

The Results

The district experienced great success using Safety iPass for entry management. The team responsible for monitoring entry into the school found it easy and reliable to utilize smartphones for scanning badges for students or staff attempting to enter the building.

Biedke informed that the rollout and use of Safety iPass had gone well. He added, “The Board of Education was very pleased with it. We then communicated it to our staff, then our parents, and our school community. We got everyone on board, and with everything new there are challenges, but working with CrisisGo, they tend to our needs immediately if there is an issue or just a question we have.”

The school district indicated that CrisisGo’s daily and weekly communication and reporting abilities allowed parents and staff to understand that the district was using all the necessary tools, resources, and protocols to ensure a safe reopening best. Daily reports permitted tracking individuals who had been diagnosed with COVID-19 or had been in close contact with someone who had. Safety iPass also allowed them to contact trace all reported cases and securely report critical safety information to the local health department while communicating with the school community.

Fast Entry for Students and Staff

Because Norridge School District 80 uses Safety iPass for managing the pre-certification and entry process for coming to school, they can scan QR codes quickly and efficiently for students and staff to verify if they should be allowed into school.

“The scanning process is wonderful,” stated Biedke. He explained that the process was so efficient that Norridge could scan and grant entry to all in-person students for their hybrid program (which counts for 40% of their overall student population) in under 15 minutes.

In Biedke’s own words, “that was one of the fears I had. Our building has approximately 500 students. We’re not at capacity because we’re doing hybrid, but we did bring the kids in from day one from the start of the school season in August, and my fear was how long is it going to take to get everyone in.”

He explained that the school even expanded their homeroom time to consider scanning everyone, getting them certified, and inside the building. Biedke stated, “I was very pleased that literally, it takes 10 minutes to get pretty much 50% of our school into the building, which is great.”

Real-Time Reporting for Immediate Action

Norridge School District 80 also valued the immediacy they had with being able to receive and respond to COVID-related safety data. The district used Safety iPass’ data collection capabilities to give the district-level administration a view of everyone who has reported or is in a school building. All visitors must scan the visitor QR code and complete the required data to enter the building.

Biedke stated, “I receive daily safety reports for all of our buildings, and I receive an escalation notification when someone certifies as AT - RISK.” He indicated that the reports helped keep track of their COVID safety and added, “It’s a good snapshot of what we’re expecting for the day, but I always keep my screen on, so I can see the real-time information.”

According to Biedke, his favorite thing about Safety iPass is that it allows his school to take action immediately once a risk is identified. “The one feature that I love is when someone registers as “at-risk,” I get an email notification right away to me. I think that’s great because it allows me to go into action right away and meet with the administrative team and get our plan in place, again, to create that safe, secure COVID-free environment.”

Providing Community Safety

When asked how the school community has taken to the use of Safety iPass for COVID safety, Biedke responded: “It assures people that we’re doing everything that we possibly can with what we’re given with the COVID crisis that is going on. It’s letting our families and students know that we take everyone’s health seriously, and we want to maintain a COVID-free learning environment for our students and our staff, and this is just one way that allows us to create that safe environment.”

Safety iPass also makes it easier for the school district to share critical safety information with the proper authorities. Biedke said, “When we have close contact or a positive case, we’re in close communication with the Cook County health department. We do have our program, and so we do go back and look at the contact tracing data with that student, and we’ve always been able to provide that information to the Cook County Health Department, so I think it speeds up the process.”

Digital Safety Platform Versatility

In addition to meeting the district’s pre-certification and entry management needs, Norridge School District 80 is also planning to use Safety iPass to help them with additional communication-based safety needs like an immunization policy their district must follow. With a state law requiring immunization records be provided to return to school, the community is working on using Safety iPass to notify parents and put a system in place.

Norridge School District also uses CrisisGo’s platform to manage their emergency drills, syncing with its Student Information System (SIS) with nightly updates to ensure accurate information. According to Biedke, it makes it much easier for the end-users of the safety product, the teachers and staff, when they don’t have to juggle many different resources and programs.

“The biggest thing I hear from teachers is that using so many different programs is hard on staff who are constantly uploading data into the system, so it’s nice to have one multi-system with many different features within our school setting and a solution that is liked by everyone,” stated Biedke.

He concluded, “for the safety aspect, CrisisGo has it all in one spot. Having one platform to leverage for multiple situations and drills is really beneficial. And the CrisisGo staff is very easy to work with. It’s just a pleasure working with the team.”