Two people who worked at Chicago Public Schools have died of COVID-19 and are among 85 who have tested positive for the virus in recent weeks, officials said Tuesday.
The total cases include staff at district-run or charter schools or who work for outside vendors.
The district didn’t identify the two workers who passed away or say which jobs they held at which schools. Officials only said neither had recently been to a school building.
“With widespread community transmission in Chicago, the district’s number one priority has been keeping staff safe and healthy and our thoughts are with all members of the CPS community who have been impacted by this virus,” CPS spokeswoman Emily Bolton said in a statement.
All schools in Illinois have been closed since March 17 through an order by Gov. J.B. Pritzker. But hundreds of CPS schools have operated as food and laptop distribution centers during that time, with lunchroom workers passing out more than 10 million meals and administrators handing out 102,000 digital devices.
Of the 85 known cases, 38 are “essential employees” who were at a school at least once in recent weeks. The food and computer distribution programs at those schools were paused once the district was notified of the positive tests.
For the 38 cases that caused the temporary closures, signs were hung up on the front entrance of the buildings — but CPS didn’t send email notifications to parents, teachers or students at those schools. Officials also haven’t released a list of the schools.
The district at the end of March stopped notifying communities if someone at their school tested positive for the coronavirus. CPS officials pointed to the fact that, at that point, schools had been closed for two weeks — equal to the 14-day incubation period for the virus — and any new positive tests at that point would not have been contracted by in anyone in the building when schools were open.
The true impact on CPS’ 38,700 workers is undoubtedly much larger than currently known as Chicago reached 26,606 cases Tuesday with 1,068 deaths. As is generally the case, experts strongly suspect many more cases have gone unidentified in people who have recovered at home without being tested.
