February 10, 2021 Updates

 Dear North Reading School Community,

I’m writing to provide a few important updates related to COVID-19 Testing and Communication.

COVID-19 Testing Updates

Families and staff should have received a reminder today for the consent form for the symptomatic testing from your school principal. Tomorrow you should be receiving a new link that would correspond to the pooled testing opportunity. This will also be sent by the school principal and will require a separate consent from you for this distinct testing opportunity. Those who do not wish to consent can disregard the email.

As I have previously shared we have been working closely with the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) and the Massachusetts Department of Public Health (DPH) to implement a free COVID-19 pooled testing program for students and staff at our school.

Following our COVID-19 Testing information forum I received many good follow-up questions about videos and supports to help to explain to children about testing and additional information related to this initiative. DESE launched this website today that contains many great resources for parents and staff and I highly recommend exploring these tools and sharing them as you see best.

Pooled testing involves mixing several individuals’ test samples together into one “pool” and then testing the pooled sample for COVID-19. This approach increases the number of individuals that can be tested at one time and allows us to regularly test our school community for COVID-19.

The pooled tests will be performed as frequently as possible (hopefully at least once per week) with a shallow nasal swab for all participating students and staff members. Schools will receive the pool results within 24-48 hours. If the result of the pool is negative, then all individuals are presumed to not have COVID-19. If the result of the pool is positive, then all individuals in the pool must be retested individually. Because pooled testing does not give individual results, you will only be notified if you (staff) or your child (families) requires follow-up testing. Our school will be providing the Abbott BinaxNOW Rapid Antigen Diagnostic Tests for follow-up testing, so that students or staff in a positive pool can be tested as soon as possible and receive individual results in 15 minutes.

Our incredible nursing staff has been thoroughly trained on how to administer pooled testing, as well as the Abbott BinaxNOW Rapid Antigen Diagnostic Tests, if they are needed for follow-up testing.  Your school will call you if your child is part of a positive pool and requires follow-up testing. Your school will report all follow-up test results to DPH and continue to provide positive follow-up test results (without names or other identifying information) to DESE's Rapid Response Help Unit.

To give permission for your student to participate in the COVID-19 Pooled Testing Program at our school, including consent to transmit student information via the pooled testing technology platform, consent for any necessary follow up tests, and consent to share the test result information with the Department of Public Health and Project Beacon (an organization contracted to compile consent for testing and to share test results), please follow the directions sent from your school principal tomorrow with the link and code to provide consent.

For those interested in participating in pooled testing it is essential that you complete and return the consent forms as soon as possible in order for us to design the pools for implementation when we return from February break.

Communication

As mentioned last week the North Reading School Committee discussed the district’s communication about COVID-19 positive cases and unanimously supported the idea of continuing to send the messages as we have been doing. In response to my email last week we heard from several families who appreciate the consistent updates and figures and for those who want to receive the information we believe it is important to continue to share this with the district and not just at the particular schools where that day’s cases occurred.

We are certainly concerned with COVID-19 fatigue and do not want to oversaturate your inbox but we are also aware that this is very important information to continue to share with the school community.

I will make some updates to the notification to also include the link to the live dashboard that is on our website that contains the figures to date and a breakdown by school. I’ve also added the current month to the main tab so that it’s easily viewable for those looking to explore the information in greater detail.

It’s also important to share that overall our schools continue to be safe despite the continued positive cases that we are reporting. However, we have seen some evidence recently of transmission in school and those entire classes and programs have been in remote for a number of days in order to maintain the safest environment. When students and staff are maintaining six feet of distance, wearing masks, and washing their hands frequently we continue to have a great amount of success in our hybrid model.

As always, thank you for your continued support and cooperation as we role out these initiatives and plans related to COVID-19.

Thank you,

Dr. Daly