The Park Hill School District says it will start testing students for COVID-19 when staffing and protocols are in place.
District coordinator for health services, Tammy Saylor, told board members at a meeting last Thursday, Dec. 10, that the district has been giving antigen rapid response tests to staff for about a month from a location at Plaza Middle School. Saylor said the school has tested 144 staff members in the last month.
Saylor said staff members are put through a screening process to determine if they are symptomatic. The staff member then makes an appointment sometime Monday through Friday to get the test.
“It’s been a great asset,” Saylor said.
Saylor said one of the things holding up student testing is staffing. She said the district will need to hire additional nurses.
“As soon as we get that done we will be offering that to students who are also symptomatic,” Saylor said.
Saylor said the district is developing a process for how the testing will work. She said most likely the child will be at home when they start to not feel well. At that point the parent should call the school nurse to determine what to do at that point.
“If the parent chooses to have them tested we will make an appointment,” Saylor said.
Parents will have to sign a release form and be present when the child receives the test. The test is a nasal swab and results are usually back within 15 minutes.
District Superintendent Dr. Jeanette Cowherd addressed the board about updated Centers for Disease Control (CDC) guidelines for quarantine that drop the period down from 14 days to 10 days or less. Cowherd said the district met with health department officials from Platte County and Kansas City and determined the district will stick with the 14-day period. Cowherd said the district needs more information right now.
“Our goal is to move to the 10 day but we’re simply not going to do it now,” Cowherd said.
Cowherd said she will continue to work with the health departments to implement the new guidelines next month.
“It just depends on what we work out,” Cowherd said about when the district will switch. “I think there are a lot of questions we want to make sure we are able to answer for our families and our staff about that,” Cowherd said.
Cowherd said the district wants to balance safety with the needs of families. She said the district knows how tough the two-week period of online learning was for some families.
“We know that’s a big impact every time we’ve had to quarantine a classroom,” Cowherd said. “We had so many quarantines frankly we couldn’t staff our buildings.”