Sangamon County schools have a new way to report their COVID-19 cases after some potential mistakes in data entry.

The Illinois Department of Public Health, IDPH, reported that Pleasant Plains Middle School had an outbreak of 21 cases after receiving up to 30 days of data from the county, but the school actually didn't have those case numbers.

Now, the county is turning to technology to help prevent these errors in the future.

Pleasant Plains provided us their case numbers when they noticed the discrepancy so we could compare them to what the state was reporting.

Pleasant Plains High School reported 21 cases in the last 30 days.

The middle and elementary school have had 16 each.

Schools send their case numbers to the county, and the county passes them along to IDPH.

It was a data reporting mix-up that caused the discrepancy, so the county health department is now using this online form instead of phone calls to record school case numbers.

"We've instituted a new sheet for them to report to us, so its more electronic not as handwritten," said department director Gail O'Neill. "So we possibly could have done that wrong."

The state updates their outbreak map every Friday, so the district hopes to see this fixed by then.

The health department told us it's their nurses responsibility to take schools off of the outbreak status.

They acknowledge that process is currently running behind.

IDPH told us counties should focus on controlling and eliminating the school outbreaks first, and worry about data entry afterward.