Voluntary asymptomatic testing in schools across Chatham-Kent and Lambton County will be getting underway by week’s end.
The two main public and English catholic Boards are working together with CLASS, the group responsible for shared school services, to organize the swabs.
Deb Crawford, Director of Education with the St Clair Catholic District School Board says they’ve been working closely with public health officials in both regions.
“We’ll be hosting a single site in Sarnia and one in Chatham,” Crawford says. “We’ve liaised with the testing vendor, GVT Lab and Imaging Services, and they’ve reserved two testing teams for our district on a seven week period, starting March 5th through to April 16th, inclusive.”
Testing site locations will be determined in the coming days, with swabs being done on Fridays and Saturdays.
“All of the reporting and communication will happen by the vendor, we’re facilitating the testing at our facilities, but we are at arms’ length from it,” says LKDSB Director John Howitt. “There will be communication to public health on the results, so public health can follow up on any confirmed cases that do come out of the testing.”
The boards have previously said the goal is to test 5% of elementary and secondary schools within each board, each week, or 2% of all students and staff taking part in face-to-face learning.