October 26, 2020

From the Office of the Superintendent 

To Our TCSS Families, Faculty, Staff, and Community,

As we first shared with you on September 3, the Tuscaloosa County School System is compiling data regarding COVID-19 and its impact on our schools. Although there are many aspects of student, employee, and health-related information we are unable to share publicly, due to the need to protect the privacy of individuals, there is information that we can and want to share with you. This is a way to keep our community informed of the current COVID-19 situation within our schools. If a student or faculty/staff member is identified as a close contact of a positive COVID-19 case within the school, they will be contacted directly by their school.

The information below reflects cases from October 9 – October 23, 2020. This information is compiled by our TCSS Department of Health Services, working in conjunction with administration at local schools.

Visit this page for our previous update with COVID-19 data from September 26 – October 9, 2020.

Visit this page for our previous update with COVID-19 data from September 11 – September 25, 2020.

Visit this page for our previous update with COVID-19 data from September 1 – September 11, 2020.

Visit this page for our previous update with COVID-19 data from August 20 – September 1, 2020.

We are aware of 66 TCSS students or employees who tested positive for COVID-19 during the October 9 through October 23 time period. This is less than half of one percent of the current on-campus TCSS student population. TCSS has approximately 19,000 students, enrolled across 34 schools. District-wide, approximately 84 percent of our students are currently attending school on campus.

During this time period, a total of 489 students or employees have had to quarantine, due to possible COVID-19 exposure. This is approximately three percent of our current on-campus student population. TCSS identified these individuals following Alabama Department of Public Health guidelines. They were not identified because they displayed COVID-19 symptoms, but because they were determined to be close contacts of positive cases within our schools.

About 73 percent of those identified as close contacts were in middle or high schools. At the secondary level, students come in contact with more of their peers, due to extracurricular activities and class changes, as compared to elementary school. This is a contributing factor to the greater numbers of students potentially exposed, when there is a positive COVID-19 case at a middle or high school. 

At this time, we do not have a total number of faculty/staff who have quarantined due to COVID-19 exposure since the start of school. However, on October 26, 2020, approximately 50 employees were listed as absent under the “COVID-19” absence code. This is approximately two percent of our 2,275 employees. This does not mean an individual has a COVID-19 diagnosis, but they may have been exposed to COVID-19 or needed other COVID-19 related leave.

Considering the highly contagious nature of the virus, we continue to be encouraged that the steps we are taking to reduce risks in our schools are effective. These key steps involve wearing masks, social distancing, cleaning within our schools, hand washing, and quarantine for those who have been exposed to the virus. Although we can never be completely certain of the source of an infection, we continue to believe, based on information provided to us by parents and guardians, the majority of positive student cases were likely contracted outside of school. In order to keep our infection rates down, we ask our entire TCSS community to maintain healthy practices outside of school. This is absolutely essential in keeping our students and staff members healthy and keeping our schools open and as safe as possible.