COVID-19 BinaxNOW testing opportunity


The North Reading Public Schools are in the initial stages of exploring an opportunity to have COVID-19 testing available for symptomatic students and staff. The Department of Elementary and Secondary Education and The Department of Public Health have collaborated on this opportunity that is currently being explored by approximately 160 Massachusetts school districts.


To be clear, no decisions have yet been made about this opportunity. We believe that we need to do our due diligence and explore this opportunity and we wish to solicit input and feedback from all stakeholders to inform our decisions.


This antigen test would be used only for symptomatic students and staff to help determine more rapidly whether a person is positive. These results will assist with contact tracing and provide more data to efficiently guide the positive person to isolation and to determine those who need to quarantine as close contacts.


There would be opt-out provisions for staff and families concerned with the sharing of data and/or for consenting to testing. In those cases the students or staff would just continue to follow our current protocol.


We understand that there will be many questions about this testing opportunity and there will be three opportunities to learn more this upcoming week:


                    Tuesday, December 8th at 7pm                     Staff/Parent Information Forum


                    Wednesday, December 9th at 7pm                     Board of Health Meeting
                                                                                        (direct link available next week)


                        Thursday, December 10th at 6:30pm         North Reading School Committee


Please note:


The Staff/Parent Information Program will focus on this one topic and will begin promptly at 7pm.


The other public meetings will have additional agenda items and this topic will be covered only at the time allotted in the agenda.


The staff/parent forum and school committee meetings will be recorded and posted on our website and/or shared for those who are unable to attend.


Thank you for all of your ongoing support.


Sincerely yours,


Dr. Daly