CHICAGO (AP) – The nation’s third-largest school district has quietly changed how it tracks COVID-19 cases, raising questions about transparency. Chicago Public Schools officials say they changed the way school infections are noted last month. The acknowledgment came after an outside observer pointed out discrepancies. Jakob Ondrey, a parent and former worker at a Chicago children’s hospital, runs a website tracking cases by pulling data from district servers. His analysis posted online Thursday found district-wide totals were updated as usual, but school-level cases were going unreported. CPS officials say the change made last month was intentional but wasn’t meant to mislead. They’re only listing cases that have been verified by the contact tracing team but will evaluate their methods again.
