Schools K-12

The Alabama Department of Public Health (ADPH) K-12 school page addresses the need for schools, local health departments, and healthcare providers to work together to support the goal of all students returning to school safely during the COVID-19 pandemic.

To ensure that ADPH county health departments are providing consistent and up-to-date information to local schools, this page provides resources and forms necessary for reporting.

School Guidance

• CDC - Operational Guidance for K-12 Schools and Early Care and Education Programs to Support Safe In-Person Learning
• AAP - COVID-19 Guidance for Safe Schools and Promotion of In-Person Learning

Monitoring & Reporting COVID-19 in Schools

• School nurses should continue to report school COVID-19 outbreaks and outbreaks of any kind using the Communicable Disease Report Card and selecting Outbreak as the Reportable Disease/Health Condition.
• The online COVID-19 case report card should only be used to report individual COVID-19 cases. School nurses no longer need to report these to public health unless they personally administer or proctor a COVID-19 test.
• For COVID-19 outbreaks use the following definition:
  • 10% absenteeism across the entire school due to COVID-19
    OR
    3 or more lab-confirmed cases within a core group (which includes but is not limited to an extracurricular activity, cohort group, classroom, before/after school care, etc.) having positive test results within 14 days of each other

**Please remember this applies only to COVID-19 and not to other communicable diseases.

Screening Testing to Promptly Identify Cases, Clusters, and Outbreaks

School testing gives communities, schools, and families added assurance that schools can open and remain open safely for all students. By identifying infections early, before symptoms appear, testing helps keep COVID-19 transmission low and students in school for in-person learning, sports, and extracurricular activities. The UAB School of Public Health is currently collaborating with the Alabama Department of Public Health and the Alabama State Department of Education to offer voluntary asymptomatic COVID-19 testing in Alabama K-12 schools to students, faculty, and staff. For more information, please contact the Program’s Director Angela Sullivan, Ph.D., at [email protected] or visit COVID Testing in Alabama K12 Schools.