Baker Pushes Districts To Ramp Up Virus Screening While Reopening Schools
Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker tours a pooled COVID-19 testing program during a visit to the Nock-Molin Middle School in Newburyport, Massachusetts on Feb. 26, 2021.
Nicolaus Czarnecki/Boston Herald/Pool
Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker is pushing for more school districts to adopt in-house COVID-19 screening as they bring students back for classroom learning this spring.
Baker appeared at the Nock-Molin Middle School in Newburyport to tour the school s pool testing operation and reopened in-class learning Friday morning.
Baker s pool testing program, launched in January, allows schools to test samples from groups of students and teachers for infection. When a positive result is found, each member of the group is then tested to find any infected individuals The method is seen as a way to screen groups like school pods and whole classes using minimal laboratory resources.
Visiting a Newburyport school on Friday, Governor Charlie Baker highlighted a key element of the administration’s push to reopen public schools: COVID-19 pool testing of nearly 300,000 children across the state.
About 950 schools in Massachusetts are administering weekly pooled COVID-19 tests to about 300,000 teachers, students and staff, including at least three Berkshire County districts.
North Adams Public Schools, Berkshire Hills Regional School District and Mount Greylock Regional School District have all been accepted into the program.
Gov. Charlie Baker detailed the statewide numbers on Friday from the Nock-Molin School in Newburyport, which is among the participants in the state s pool testing program, an initiative Baker announced last month with the goal of providing a more efficient COVID-19 screening method for schools repopulating their classrooms after months of remote learning. To get to the point where this thing is really starting to rock and roll is a real pleasure, I think, for all of us who were looking to find a relatively uncomplicated way for schools to implement a weekly surveillance program, and you folks were one of the first in line, Baker said.
Pool testing in schools is a âfirst-in-the-nationâ tool to get students back to in-person learning, Baker says
By Felicia Gans Globe Staff,Updated February 26, 2021, 9:27 a.m.
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Governor Charlie Baker.Pat Greenhouse/Globe Staff
Visiting a Newburyport school on Friday, Governor Charlie Baker said the pool testing program that has launched in hundreds of Massachusetts schools in recent weeks will be a key tool in bringing students back for in-person learning and building âwhatever the next normalâs going to be.â
âTo get to the point where this thing is really starting to rock and roll is a real pleasure I think for all of us who were looking to find a relatively uncomplicated way for schools to implement a weekly surveillance program,â Baker said, speaking after seeing the schoolâs pool testing program in action.
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