How Pooled Testing Will Work In Medfield Schools

MEDFIELD, MA — Medfield Public Schools have partnered with the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education and Department of Public Health to implement free COVID-19 pooled testing for students and staff.

Pooled testing involves mixing people's test samples together and testing the pooled sample for COVID-19. If the pool comes back positive, its members are individually tested. This increases the number of people that can be tested at once and allows the district to regularly test for COVID-19.

The test is performed once per week with a soft nasal swab for all students and staff with signed consent, said Medfield School Nurse Leader Kathleen Thompson. Results are received within 24-48 hours. If a pool result is negative, then all individuals within that pool are presumed negative. If a pooled test result is positive, those individuals will be notified and will have a BinaxNOW rapid antigen test with their school nurse, with results available in 15 minutes. In the event that this does not identify the positive individual, members of the pool will need to have a PCR test. All students will be able to participate in their in-person learning while waiting for results, Thompson said.

Superintendent Jeffrey Marsden said the testing is another tool, along with rapid testing, to help the school district get more information about how COVID-19 is spreading.

"We thought it be a good opportunity to get some additional data and make some decisions as we move towards more in-person learning," Marsden said.

The district is still in a hybrid model except for prekindergarten and kindergarten which are both using in-person learning. Marsden said the goal is to have all grades fully in the classrooms by April 5, and that a phased approach will be used for reopening. Rapid and pooled testing data will both play a role in making that decision.

By doing that and doing a real good job with this, I think their going to go hand-in-hand," Marsden said. "This is all important data we can use to make those decisions."

Marsden said the pooled testing will be implemented for students and staff for grades 6-12 beginning the Thursday after Februrary vacation. The pooled testing will be optional, and permission slips will be distributed electronically. Marsden said he hopes to have those slips out by Thursday.