Contact tracing is imperative to the success of in-person schools being allowed to continue. Camas High School (CHS) is one of the many schools trying contact tracing, but what they may not be aware of is this system is not as effective as CHS health officials might think.

Contact tracing is one of the guidelines the Camas School District (CSD) adopted in order to keep its students safe and in school. The reason for contact tracing is that if one child gets sick the other students that were around that child get notified. 

According to the Washington State Department of Health, “contact tracing starts with a person who tested positive for COVID-19. This person will be advised to stay home except to get medical care until they are no longer contagious.”

CHS has a system in place where students use their cellular device to scan a QR code to log where they sit. 

Sophomore Alana Rae said that the internet at the school makes it especially difficult to do this task. “I couldn’t, I wasn’t able to, I tried though.” Rae goes on to say that the internet restricted her from even accessing the website to fill out the form due to it not being strong enough. “The Internet is horrible here, I can’t connect to it,” she said.

Biology teacher Ryan Josephsen thinks this system works well if followed properly. “I think it does exactly what it intended to do which is to help health officials and school administration to recognize who might be potentially exposed to COVID in the case of a student coming to school,” he said. 

As it stands the system that CSD put in place to keep students safe is mediocre at best, but mediocre is not what makes students and staff feel safe. Mediocre is also not what is setting a consistent and safe boundary across all classrooms.