Superintendent Conrad - Pooled Testing Results - March 31, 2021
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Wednesday, March 31, 2021
Dear parents, caregivers, and guardians,
Thank you for your continued partnership during this unprecedented school year. As you know, the number of COVID-19 cases in Bedford, Middlesex County, and Massachusetts have begun to rise again. With that in mind I wanted to take this opportunity to reach out and ask you to consider joining our free in school Pool Testing program. This program is offered in conjunction with the DESE and CIC of Cambridge.
To be truly effective, experts advise that we need over 75% of our school population to be tested regularly in order for us to reach maximum protection. Identifying and isolating asymptomatic cases allows for containment and prevention of transmission. This means that we have greater confidence in our prevention measures at school. This will be especially important as our students return to five (5) days of person learning in all of our buildings.
I often hear that quarantine is a deterrent. In the event we have a positive pool, the school nurse team will contact members of the positive pool to be tested with the rapid BinaxNOW antigen tested as soon as possible. Only if we are unable to determine the positive case using the rapid test, we would need to ask the positive pool members to quarantine and wait for the PCR test results. We anticipate that positive pool members would spend very little time in quarantine as they are able to quickly access individual Antigen and PCR testing. Positive participants are also able to act quickly and quarantine immediately without creating a larger number of close contacts. I know that our neighboring districts are meeting and exceeding that level of participation. Please consider strengthening our seventh safety pillar.
For more information on our testing and to sign up please review these resources: Bedford Public Schools Pooled Testing Overview and Bedford Public Schools Introducing Pooled Testing Slides
We are eager and excited to have all of our students back in school and hope you will consider becoming part of our pool testing program to ensure the success of our return to in person learning.
As always, thank you for your patience, your participation, and your continued commitment to our schools,