We would like to thank you for your continued updating of the ODE Weekly COVID-19 Status Tracker for your school. As the Ready School, Safe Learners guidance continues to evolve so does this weekly report. While the operational status metrics are advisory under the latest version of the RSSL guidance, this report is still required for all public and private schools in the State of Oregon. This report helps provide valuable information to the Department and to OHA for tracking outbreaks connected to schools as well as planning for the distribution of vaccinations and PPE. 

To better align with the most recent version of the guidance, we have made modifications to simplify the weekly status report. Each week, the designated contact(s) for each school will receive an automated message at noon on Wednesday requesting an update. In that update form you will see the dates for the reporting week requested and the advisory operational status based on the county where your school is located. The first change you will see in the report is that we are no longer asking you to report your school's operational status. We are asking that you only report the instructional model that your school is using for the reporting week from a drop down list, options include:

• On-Site
• Hybrid
• Comprehensive Distance Learning w/LIPI
• Comprehensive Distance Learning
• Classes not in session/School close for the week. 

For full definitions of these instructional models and how to complete this new version of the weekly report you can review the updated Instructions and Definitions Version 3.0 Document. As with prior weeks the email for the update will be coming from Blake Whitson via automation@app.smartsheet.com requesting you update your schools submission. For this first reporting week with the revised format, the “Instructional Model” field for your school will be blank. Please make sure to update this field. Additional follow ups will be done with schools who do not submit updates to this field. 

Another change also includes an optional field to report the number of students attending school via CDL as well as the number of students attending in person. Again, this field is optional for schools to include. If you have any questions regarding the submission of this report please email ODECOVID19@ode.state.or.us.

Other Frequently Asked Questions

How do  I submit weekly updates? 

1. Receive an auto generated email - each week an email is auto generated and sent out to the listed contact for each school from “Blake Whitson via Smartsheet <automation@app.smartsheet.com>" and will have the subject line “Action Needed: COVID-19 School Status Weekly Update.” (As a reminder: this email is sent out every Wednesday at noon (12 pm) asking for an update for the week (Sunday to Saturday) to be submitted by 5pm on Friday. For schools that do not submit an update, an reminder email will be sent on Monday of the following week. 
2. Look for the blue box - In the email you will see a blue box with the words “open update form. "click the box to access the update form. Use the Instructions and definitions document linked above for further details on completing the weekly update. 
3. Submit your weekly update - once you have submitted that week’s update, the  link will no longer work to submit updates. A new link will be sent the following week. 

Why am I not receiving auto-generated email updates? 

If you are not receiving the update email there are two possibilities. First, you should check your spam and junk mail folders as well as with your IT department to make sure the email is not being filtered out as spam. If you are still unable to find the email it could mean that your email has been entered incorrectly. If that is the case you can email ODECOVID19@ode.state.or.us and request we check your email address.

How should I submit if I have no changes?

There will be a check box on the weekly update form to indicate “No Changes". This checkbox will be disabled for the first week of the revised format. Starting next week, If your report has no changes from the previous week, you will simply need to check this box and click submit. This will ensure you do not get the subsequent reminder email saying we did not get your submission.

What happens if I forget to submit?

If you do not submit an update by 5pm on Friday, the Smartsheet will send another automatic email similar to the one described above. This email is sent out on Monday at noon and asks that you submit as soon as possible for the prior week. If you receive this email, but have already submitted your update and received your confirmation from Smartsheet, you can simply ignore this message.

How should we change our school contact person?

The contact person’s information can also be changed when submitting the weekly update. We do ask that schools use this process to submit contact person changes, rather than reach out to us to change. Further, we know that districts are approaching this differently. Some have a single contact for all of their schools who submit the weekly report. Others have building administrators do the submission. Either is an acceptable way to do the submission but we do ask the districts and schools to make the determination for themselves and submit contact information accordingly.

Thank you again for your patience as we have launched and refined this collection. If you have questions regarding the collection that have not been answered above you can send those to ODECOVID19@ode.state.or.us and we will respond to you as quickly as possible.