GREEN BAY, Wis. (NBC 26) -- At a glance, some school Covid data looks troubling.
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"The number of student isolations is quite a bit higher than it was at any point last year since we've began tracking that data in January," Green Bay Area School District COO Josh Patchak said.
Many school districts across Northeast Wisconsin are tracking student and staff coronavirus numbers through an online dashboard.
In Green Bay, there are over 1,600 kids in quarantine. In Appleton, there's just 45. But each district tracks the data differently.
"Because of the autonomy of districts to implement their own protocols, you're just seeing a wide variation of variations, policies [and] processes," Patchak said.
One of the reasons for a seemingly high number of quarantines in Green Bay schools? The district tracks the possible spread of positive cases within its own classrooms.
There are almost 1,800 kids at home.
"There have been many boards that have said that they're going with the more relaxed approach to quarantining and isolating," Patchak said.
But why does Appleton have over 1,600 less students in quarantine? The district only conducts contact tracing within a household.
"A current quarantine case indicates that an individual AASD student or staff member has been ordered to quarantine because they are a household member of a Covid-19-positive individual who is an AASD staff member or student," Appleton Area School District Superintendent Judy Baseman said at a Monday night board meeting.
Still, there are 105 positive Covid cases in Green Bay schools. There are 57 in the Appleton district.
"We also serve a different population of students than the surrounding districts who have their own unique challenges," Patchak said.
