Tracking and publishing COVID-19 cases in a district with over 330,000 students, over 40,000 permanent staff, and over 500 district-run schools can be extremely complex. As the pandemic has evolved, our dashboard has evolved and expanded to include more data. So before you dive into the numbers, please take a moment to read about how we currently collect and report the information in our dashboard. Please keep in mind that numbers are dynamic and subject to change.
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The total cases data on this page shows all cases among CPS students and staff. Cases are displayed at both the District level and the individual school level; counts can be viewed by day or by week. Keep in mind that case counts are not a measure of transmission in schools and numerous studies have shown that schools are not sites of significant COVID-19 transmission.
CPS is notified of cases in two key ways:
- Weekly Screening Testing: Every week, CPS offers free COVID-19 testing in every school. When a positive case is detected, CPS is notified, and the case is posted on the dashboard on the day the result is received. These case counts are subject to change as cases are investigated and verified. Sign your student up for weekly testing
- Self-Reported Cases: When a student or staff member submits a positive test through our self-reporting tool, the case gets posted on our dashboard that same day. These case counts are subject to change as cases are investigated and verified. Report a positive COVID-19 case
Why does CPS treat these cases differently? Results that come in through our weekly screening program are more timely and accurate than self-reported cases. Self-reported cases take time to investigate and verify; many self-reported cases turn out to be duplicates or unconfirmed reports. In the interest of transparency, we are providing both totals.
What does CPS do when there is a duplicate case? Oftentimes when students or staff members receive a positive result from our weekly screening program, they also report it through our self-reporting tool, creating a duplicate case and inflating the number of total cases. The self-reporting tool gives the student or staff member the option of providing significant information regarding the case to assist the contact tracing team in their investigation of the case. If the self-reported record of the case has more information than the screen-tested record of the case, we may remove the screen-tested record from the total number of screen-tested cases and keep the self-submitted record of the case so that the contact tracer has the most information at their hands to undergo their investigation of the case.
For more information on our reporting and terminology, view the footnotes below.
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The individuals in quarantine/isolation data on this page shows the number of students and staff who are either teaching or learning from home because they have either tested positive for COVID-19 or have been identified as a close contact of someone who has tested positive. Totals are displayed at both the District level and the individual school level.
For more information on our reporting and terminology, view the footnotes below.
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This section reports the results of our district's screening testing program. This section also shows the positivity rate, which is the number of positive, validated cases detected in the screening testing divided by the number of tests administered.
For more information on our reporting and terminology, view the footnotes below.
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This section reports information about student vaccination rates at both the district and school levels. Use the “School” tab to search for your school and view detailed information about student vaccination. Results are broken out by school governance, age group, and vaccination status.
For more information on our reporting and terminology, view the footnotes below.
Daily District Cases
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Total Cases
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Adults
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Students
Quarantined/Isolated Individuals
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Individuals In Quarantine/Isolation
Adults
Students
Eligible Student Vaccination Rates
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District Completed Vaccination Course
Non-District Completed Vaccination Course
Students Opted In To Testing
MM/DD/YYYY
Opted In
Daily School Cases
date-range
Quarantined/Isolated Individuals
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Eligible Student Vaccination Rates
MM/DD/YYYY
Completed Vaccination Course
Staff and Student COVID-19 Screening Testing
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Version Notes
As we expand our COVID-19 reporting, we're tracking major changes to this page. View the latest updates below.
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September 27, 2022
- The date range for Daily District and School cases has been updated to align with the school calendar and ensure full weeks are reflected between data pages. The date range for SY21-22 has been changed from 8/29/2021 - 6/15/2022 to 8/29/2021 - 6/18/2022.
- The date range for Quarantined/Isolated Individuals has been updated to align with the school calendar and ensure full weeks are reflected between data pages. The date range for SY21-22 has been changed from 8/29/2021 - 6/18/2022 to 8/29/2021 - 6/15/2022.
September 19, 2022
- Modified case totals processing to address issue where, under certain conditions, some cases that were later deemed inactionable in system of record were not removed from school-level day and week totals.
August 24, 2022
- Updated dashboards for Eligible Student Vaccination Rates and Students Opted In To Testing to stop updating on the last day of school to align with the end of SY21-22.
April 14, 2022
- Added a new dashboard for Students Opted In To Testing to share information about the number of students participating in the in-school COVID-19 screening testing program. Opt-in data is available at the district level.
- Updated the daily and weekly cases dashboard to remove counts of adults and students from non-district schools, resulting in slightly lower total counts. Previously, case counts included data from some non-district schools such as charter schools, contract schools, ALOP schools, and SAFE schools. The daily and weekly cases dashboard will only report data from district-operated schools and facilities beginning April 14, 2022.
- Updated the quarantined/isolated individuals dashboard to report only data from district-operated schools and facilities beginning April 14, 2022. Previously, counts of individuals in quarantine/isolation included data from some non-district schools such as charter schools, contract schools, ALOP schools, and SAFE schools. All data reported before April 14, 2022 will remain in the quarantined/isolated individuals dashboard.
March 24, 2022
Added a new dashboard for Eligible Student Vaccination Rates to share vaccination data with the public. Vaccination data is available at both the district and school levels.
February 25, 2022
Updated Staff and Student COVID-19 Screening Testing data table on February 24, 2022 to align with the Total Cases dashboard by reporting only actionable cases, resulting in a decrease in the counts displayed in the table.
The Staff and Student COVID-19 Screening Testing data table pulls data directly from our testing vendor, ThermoFisher. Prior to Winter Break, this table only included actionable cases because, by definition, cases detected from the in-school screening testing program are actionable. During Winter Break, positive results from ThermoFisher’s take-home testing program were also logged in this table, but most were non-actionable because individuals were not present in school buildings while infectious. These non-actionable cases were only included in the Staff and Student COVID-19 Screening Testing data table — not in the Total Cases dashboard. On February 24, 2022, CPS updated this table to include only actionable cases to align with the Total Cases dashboard, resulting in the removal of non-actionable cases from Winter Break take-home testing. This update also removed additional cases where individual data for a student who had tested positive was incomplete, erroneous, or outdated.
February 24, 2022
District case counts: Updated the graph and table to display a more detailed breakdown of cases at the district level. The page now displays district-wide adult and student cases that were either self-reported outside of school facilities or confirmed positive by a PCR test through the COVID-19 screening program. Previously, the page aggregated these data points into reported adults and reported students.
School case counts: Updated the graph and table to display a more detailed breakdown of cases at the school level. The page now displays school-specific adult and student cases that were either self-reported outside of school facilities or confirmed positive by a PCR test through the COVID-19 screening program. Previously, the page displayed only closed cases at the school level.
Weekly case and testing data will now only display results for full weeks to align with the city of Chicago’s reporting standard and present a more accurate depiction of circumstances. Previously, a partial week of results were displayed for case and testing data.
The tested positive metric in the screening table will now show only results that were confirmed against a current staff/student record. This vetting process may result in slightly lower testing numbers if previous screen tests were not matched to a student or staff record.
Updated the Individuals in Quarantine/Isolation table and graph to display the proper number of quarantined/isolated students between February 18, 2022 and February 23, 2022. Previously, an error in the district’s contact tracing system resulted in an undercount of students in quarantine/isolation for the 5-day period. As of February 24, the proper count is now reflected in the data on this page.