Newark Schools Will COVID Test Students, Staff When They Reopen

NEWARK, NJ — Newark’s public schools are scheduled to reopen for in-person learning in April. And when they do, there will be weekly coronavirus testing among consenting students, teachers and other staff members, officials say.

As part of the district’s attempt to reopen for some in-person learning on April 12, schools in PK to grade 12 will be rolling out weekly COVID-19 tests, administrators said.

The shift will kick off with a pilot program at New Jersey Regional Day, officials said Wednesday. Other schools in the district will begin testing when they resume hybrid in-person instruction on April 12.

Learn more about the district’s plan to reopen here.

The public school district, New Jersey’s largest, will be partnering with Ginkgo Bioworks Inc. to provide the pooled SARS-CoV-2 testing.

“We are extremely excited to participate in … testing for students because it will provide an added level of confidence to parents, students, staff and the community as we return to in-person instruction,” Superintendent Roger León said.

“We are poised to join school districts across the country in this important endeavor to mitigate the spread of COVID-19,” León added.

District administrators released the following details about the plan:

“As school districts across the nation work hard to reopen and stay open, regular testing remains critical to ensure the health of students, teachers and staff and create a safe environment for learning. Pooled classroom testing, which combines swabs from all consenting individuals in a classroom and runs them as a single test, is an effective way to easily test many people at once with fewer resources. Concentric by Ginkgo’s pooled testing program, which is used by schools in hundreds of communities across the country, is cost-effective and straightforward for schools to implement, as Ginkgo provides all the training and testing materials necessary as well as lab and data processing services. Students and school administrators alike have described the testing process as simple and painless.”

Officials continued:

“Across the district, Newark public schools will engage pooled testing as one of many strategies which form a robust and multifaceted coronavirus response. These strategies include health attestations, deep cleaning, social distancing, contact tracing, handwashing, ventilation and other facility enhancements. Together, these layered prevention strategies accord with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s K-12 School Operational Strategy, and recommendations from public health officials.”

“The unanimous vote of the [Newark Board of Education] on this resolution is indicative of our ongoing unified support of the Newark Reopening Plan, and we look forward to joining other school districts in this endeavor,” President Josephine Garcia said.

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