New Testing Protocol for Oregon Schools Adopted By BSD
By Ethan Tsai
As COVID-19 cases increasingly appear in schools across Oregon and a significant amount of students remain unvaccinated, the Oregon Health Authority has begun to unroll a new plan for school coronavirus testing. The program has been assisted by a myriad of medical labs, such as OHSU, and is making its way into public schools across the state.
Currently, the plan dictates that teachers hand out testing kits to students who have opted into the program. After facilitating the test at home, a student will return the testing kit to the school, where it will be collected and sent to OHSU for analysis. The procedure for testing is saliva-based.
Although students have a choice whether to opt into the program, it is advised that all students participate. Even if a student is vaccinated it is still possible to contract COVID-19, and regular testing can help to limit the spread of the virus among students and staff. Even if a student — vaccinated or not — is asymptomatic, they can still unknowingly spread COVID-19 to other students while attending school.
“We’re hoping to be able to find students who are COVID positive, so we can then isolate them, identify their close contacts and quarantine those students and reduce the number of students who actually end up with COVID-19,” explained Dr. Hudson, Executive Administrator for Student Services in the Beaverton School District. According to sources from FOX 12, roughly 37% of elementary students are now participating in the program, with middle and high schoolers beginning the roll-out process. At Sunset, registration forms needed to be submitted by October 22 in order for a student to be eligible for the first round of testing; however, it is still possible to sign up for future rounds if you missed the deadline.
Although Beaverton School District is the only Oregon district to have fully implemented this plan, other districts such as Lake Oswego also have stated intentions to adopt the plan: a Lake Oswego spokesperson stated, “Our collection days will be on Wednesdays and we are starting — our first collection day will be Wednesday, Oct. 13.” Recently, Portland Public has also begun to run the program. If you wish to sign up for the testing program, follow the instructions provided on this website to get started.
