(File photo/paNOW Staff)

By Jeff D'Andrea

In-school testing

Dir. Bratvold ‘impressed’ with in-school COVID-19 testing at Carlton

Sep 18, 2020 | 5:18 PM

Throughout Thursday and Friday, Carlton Comprehensive Public High School has conducted in-school COVID-19 testing.

According to a statement by the Saskatchewan Health Authority, over 90 people participated in the tests throughout the two days. Across the province, 550 people opted into the tests in Saskatoon, with another 250 doing so in Regina.

Robert Bratvold, the director of education with Saskatchewan Rivers Public School Division, was pleased with how everybody came together to make the testing work.

“I was impressed with the amount of work we were able to do together with the staff at Carlton and organization the place, the flow of traffic and things like that,” Bratvold said. “Also the staff within health in terms of allocating additional folks to do the testing and administrating the intake of students and staff. It seemed to go really well.

“We were glad to be a part of this in terms of the first initiative from health to do some testing in schools.”

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Bratvold said there were a few key lessons learned after being involved in the first initiative of its kind in the province. Tests weren’t limited to just students, as staff could also volunteer for the testing. But if staff went to get tested, there would need to be a backup for them, as that teacher’s classroom would be left unattended as they waited for a test.

The other big lesson was having the whole process spread out a little more. Permission letters were sent out to students on Sept. 9, before testing began on Sept. 17 and 18 at Carlton. Bratvold said that is a tight window for schools to sort and organize all the letters before the testing days.

“The timeline was quite compressed. We know when permission forms go home with students and come back and need to be collated and sorted into appropriate places for intake, that takes some time,” Bratvold said. “It was a fairly tight timeline, so it would be helpful for us to know, and for health to know, that we might need a little more time when dealing with this number of students.”

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Jeff.dandrea@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @jeff_paNOW