Earlier this week, the New York State Department of Health sent out warning letters to districts across the state.
The letter that's signed by NYSDOH Commissioner Dr. Howard Zucker, calls out districts that they said have not posted any data to the State's COVID-Report Card Database.
Is putting some school districts on notice....if they're not reporting numbers for the state's covid report card.
But some local districts are saying they are... and there are problems on the state's end.
News channel 2's brent kearney joins us live in the studio....with (that( and the potential penalties schools face.
Kristen, i spoke with the edmeston central schools superintendent gary furman over the phone today, that was shocked when he received the letter from the department of health because according to their report card here, they inputted data yesterday the department of health's letter states that the school district has failed to comply with this mandatory reporting requirement.
However, superintendent furman told me apart from one day, his district has consistently been inputting to the report card.
The district has only reported one positive case that was off the school's campus.
Locally, districts such as rome also received the letter, their report card shows they last inputted data yesterday as well.
The letter signed by state health commissioner howard zucker gives districts 48 hours to begin reporting numbers or face penalties.
Those include ending in person learning and moving to fully remote learning staff responsible for posting to therd from office and the district could lose their professional licenses and certifications.
"it just seems like this was one more thing added to our plate that was not necessary.
It should have been done in i think a more productive way in a more collaborative way and a way that we could reach a solution with the department of health."
I reached out to the state for a response and they said in part "the department recognizes the unprecedented challenges school districts are facing in response to this pandemic, but also how important this information is for families and for public health officials who use it to identify trends to plan a response i did ask the department of health if some of these letters could have been sent by mistake, but i did not get an answer.
In the studio brent kearney news channel 2 county by county with