Good afternoon Springfield School District Community,
This is Dr. McLaughlin, your Superintendent of Schools. I wanted to call you with an update on our approach to COVID. Back around the start of the New Year, I informed you that the state was telling us that we were close to a major transition in COVID testing and monitoring. Schools would slowly move out of that role and would instead begin to fill the role of test distributors. Since then the Governor and his staff have also had a press conference to discuss the upcoming changes.
Here in Springfield Schools, we had hoped we would be able to transition to the new system this upcoming Monday. We figured we would be receiving the necessary number of tests to perform our new role and that we could communicate with you multiple days in advance of the switch over. Unfortunately, we are yet to receive the volume of tests that would be necessary to make the change; so, for the time being, we will continue to operate under the old guidelines. This includes contact tracing, utilizing Test-to-Stay, and surveillance testing.
We now hope to receive testing additional shipments this time next week. If we do, then we would target Monday, January 31st, as a start of the new approach. Of course, there is a lot that can change between now and then, so I hope you will be patient and anticipate additional information from us over the coming weeks.
As always thanks for your courage and perseverance during this challenging time.
I hope you and your family have a good evening.