On Sept. 10, Jamesville-DeWitt Central School District Superintendent Peter Smith sent the following letter via SchoolMessenger to J-D families and staff.
Dear Jamesville-DeWitt families and staff,
As we begin the new school year, we are excited to welcome students and staff back to our buildings for in-person instruction five days per week. Because the COVID-19 pandemic is still a concern, we have a number of health and safety protocols in place to mitigate the spread of the virus in our schools. In addition to such practices as wearing masks indoors and social distancing when possible, we will be conducting weekly surveillance testing in our schools to track the prevalence of COVID-19 in our school community.
This state-required surveillance testing will help us determine if asymptomatic students or staff are COVID-19 positive. We are partnering with Quadrant Biosciences and SUNY Upstate Medical University to incorporate their Clarifi COVID-19 testing program in each of our schools. The goal is to test 10% of the school community each Friday, beginning Sept. 17.
This testing is an important part of the state’s strategy to limit the spread of COVID-19 within our schools and the community-at-large so I thank you in advance for participating and helping to keep our schools safe. We are asking students’ parents and guardians to complete a consent form, see link below, for their students to be included in the weekly testing. Students and staff will be selected at random to participate, and students will only be tested if the school has a completed consent form on file.
The Test
The Clarifi COVID-19 test is currently the most sensitive saliva test on the market and has been administered over 2 million times to college and K-12 students in New York state. It involves a very simple and painless saliva swab that students and staff can easily self-administer.
The Testing Procedure
There is a two-step process to register students for the testing. First, families must sign and return the attached consent form to their respective building principal. Second, a student profile needs to be created at app.Clarifi-COVID-19.com. You can register multiple student profiles under each account.
Once all samples have been collected for the day, we will send them to Quadrant’s lab to be analyzed. Results will be returned within 24-48 hours and will be available for you to view by logging back into app.Clarifi-COVID-19.com. We will also share directly with families and staff via SchoolMessenger the number of cases found at each building.
We hope you will consider having your child participate in this important testing program. The health and safety of our students, staff and community is our highest priority, and we greatly appreciate your support during these challenging times. If you have any questions or concerns about the surveillance testing, please reach out to me or your child’s building principal. Thank you, and best wishes for a great start to the new school year!
Sincerely,
Peter Smith