BOSTON (WHDH) – Gov. Charlie Baker on Thursday announced that a rapid COVID-19 testing program will be made available at schools across Massachusetts when students and teachers return to the classroom in September.
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“To help schools get ready, our administration is providing comprehensive, science-based plans on everything from transportation to sports, and of course classroom configuration,” Baker said during a news conference at the State House. “Another resource to assist schools that we are making available will be new COVID-19 testing tools that can be made available to every school in the Commonwealth.”
Baker said his administration will start by implementing a “rapid response testing program” at every K-12 school in the state to help manage outbreaks in the event they should pop up.
“This program will be designed to quickly deliver testing resources for students and school personnel if there are multiple cases in a cohort that require larger scale testing than a community may have access to currently,” Baker said.
The program can be deployed to test students and teachers within a particular classroom or other groups, according to Baker. The Department of Public Health will be tasked with working with local school districts if situations arise to determine if the program should be deployed.
Health and Human Services Secretary Marylou Sudders detailed some situations in which the program would be deployed.
“The mobile response team would be deployed if the following minimal conditions applied: For example, if two or more students or staff within the classroom group develop COVID within a 14-day period and transmission exposure appeared to have occurred in the classroom; if more than 3 percent of the cohort or grade — which means at least three individuals — develop COVID-19 within 14 days; if more than 3 percent of the school develops COVID-19 within 14 days and there’s evidence of transmission within the school; if three or more staff within the same school developed COVID-19 within that 14 day period and there’s evidence of transmission among staff; and if two or more students on the bus develop COVID-19 within 14 days,” Sudders said.
Baker’s announcement comes after dozens of teachers who feel it’s unsafe to return to the classroom amid the pandemic rallied at the State House on Wednesday in support of beginning the new school year with fully-remote learning. Leaders of teachers unions made it clear that their members may not return to class if in-school testing and contact tracing is not made available.
In a statement, Massachusetts Teachers Association President Merrie Najimy, said Baker’s testing plan “falls short.”
“Because the educators’ unions are shining a bright light on what a safe return to in-person learning requires, Governor Baker is finally acknowledging the necessity of having rapid COVID-19 testing available to students and educators. The plan he unveiled today still falls short,” Najimy said. “COVID-19 testing must be widespread, frequent, easily accessible and free to all students and staff – and not limited just to cohorts where there are signs of concern. Like much of what Governor Baker has promoted for schools, his testing plan recklessly creates false confidence. We need to be able to reopen public schools in a manner that prevents the spread of the coronavirus, and Governor Baker’s plan does not accomplish that.”
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Earlier this week, Baker said that 371 of the 400 districts had submitted their reopening plans as of Monday, and 70 percent involved either a full return to in-person classes or a hybrid of remote and in-person learning.
“Given the low transmission rates in the vast majority of our communities, we’re glad that nearly three-quarters of our school districts are using the categories as they plan to either offer a full return to in-person learning or a hybrid approach,” Baker said.
About 30 percent of districts are currently pursuing a fully remote model, according to Baker.
The state’s “Stop the Spread” testing initiative is also being extended through the end of September “in several communities with the highest rate of COVID” to ensure there is sufficient access to testing as teachers and students return to school.
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