As parents of a young HES student, we would like to encourage all students, faculty, and staff in both Hildreth Elementary and the Bromfield School to participate in the weekly COVID-Safe Schools testing program, regardless of vaccination status. High participation in the program will be key to providing the data that we need to make decisions for our schools.
Having those weekly pooled testing results gave us enormous peace of mind during in-person learning last school year, and will continue to do so this year as we anxiously await vaccine authorization for children under 12. Continued participation in the pooled testing program by unvaccinated and vaccinated students and staff alike will serve another key role this school year, and that is to provide data to support gradual relaxation of mitigations, as appropriate, while still working to prevent school closures by isolating cases before they become outbreaks. This is how we were able to justify relaxing some measures last spring and this summer, and it will continue to be the data we need to forge a path forward, out of this long tunnel.
For the broader community, the school testing also acts as the best continued sampling program we have for Harvard. The greater the participation in the weekly COVID-Safe Schools testing program, the better data we have to be able to make informed policy decisions, and the safer we can feel as a community.
So parents, guardians, and students, please make sure to fill out the testing consent forms when they’re sent out. Also please consider participating in the drive-up baseline COVID-Safe Schools testing event at Bromfield on Wednesday, Aug. 25, for a safer start to the school year. There are two windows, from 7:30 to 9:30 a.m. and from 3 to 6 p.m. Testing is open to students, staff, and family members, so load up the car and we’ll see you there.
Rachel Kopay and Kenneth Schalk
Littleton County Road
