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Schools Rush to Get Free COVID-19 Tests
State officials report that there’s been a rush by ISDs and charters to sign up for receiving free COVID-19 rapid testing kits after the application process opened on Oct. 28.
Guidelines announced by the TEA and the Texas Department of Emergency Management require districts wishing to participate in the free testing program to opt-in by completing, and submitting, a form.
School districts signing up for the testing program must agree to provide on-campus instruction to all students who wish to attend classes on campus, currently or within the next two weeks (unless the district can convince the TEA to waive the in-person classroom instruction requirement).
The BinaxNOW test kits manufactured by Abbott Labs are considered significantly more accurate than prior tests for COVID-19, and are 97.1 percent accurate for showing a true positive result and 98.5 percent accurate for showing a true negative result.
The tests are to be administered via a nasal swab.
The amount of supplies provided school systems will depend on the COVID-19 conditions in the surrounding area and the population of the school system.
All results of the testing — whether student or staff, positive or negative — are to be reported to the state weekly.
The state opened up the applications for all public and private K-12 schools after initially selecting, two weeks earlier, a pilot project involving six ISDs, a charter and a private school (see TEN, Oct. 26).
Texas K-12 schools, as of Oct. 18 (a period before the free test kit program began), reported 15,986 COVID-19 positive student cases and 10,141 positive staff cases since Sept. 28. (Click here for updated data.)