Roughly 90% of the rapid antigen tests administered throughout Daviess County Public Schools as part of their “test-to-stay” program came back with negative results, saving nearly 5,300 in-person school days, district officials said Tuesday.
Since mid-October, local school systems have partnered with Ethos Labs for “test-to-stay” programs aimed at keeping as many students in schools as possible. The plan granted students and staff who would otherwise have had to quarantine due to a positive contact the ability to be tested for COVID-19 over a period of time and remain in school as long as they remained negative. The program uses an FDA-approved rapid test.
Wendi Kozel, RN, District Health Coordinator, presented the test-to-stay statistics to date for DCPS — as compiled by Ethos Lab — during Tuesday’s Board of Education luncheon.
According to those stats, a total of 5,859 rapid antigen tests had been administered. Of those, 5,296 came back negative and 563 positive. Each negative test is considered to save one in-person school day, meaning 5,296 were saved.
Anyone whose rapid antigen test came back positive was also given the option to take a viral PCR test. A total of 141 viral PCR tests have been administered, with 65 coming back positive and 76 negative.
Burns Middle School by far administered the most tests with 1,308, including 72 positive rapid tests and 23 positive PCR tests. Daviess County High School administered 838 tests, including 107 positive rapid tests and 19 positive PCR tests.
Other schools with the most positive rapid tests included Daviess County Middle (68), College View Middle (50), Apollo High (49), Country Heights Elementary (44), and Burns Elementary (33). No schools other than BMS and DCHS had double-digit positive PCR tests.
Full results for all DCPS schools can be found below.
The test-to-stay option is free for students (consent must be given by parents/guardians to participate) and staff. But participation is not required, Kozel said.
“As long as they were asymptomatic and tested negative every day, they could participate in school activities,” Kozel said. “But testing is the choice of the families. Some people prefer not to have their kids tested every day. It just depended on what worked out best for them, what their personal beliefs were, and what their preference was. It gave them an alternative to just being completely required to quarantine.”
Kozel said the test-to-stay program has played a major role in helping the schools stay open by avoiding mass quarantines.
“It feels good to have been a part of a district that paid attention to health experts and science and what truly was important,” she said. “I feel like we have done everything we can to keep our students and staff healthy as much as possible. We’re just a small fraction of what their daily life is, but our responsibilities really weighed heavy on our staff. “
Kozel said it’s been a rough couple of years and there hasn’t been much downtime, especially for the nurses. But, she’s hopeful that the tide is turning and things are returning somewhat close to what used to be normal.
“The amount of vaccines that are available, the number of people who have been vaccinated, that has made a huge difference on our school population,” Kozel said. “I hope that we’re actually able to see the fruits of some of our labor.”
Kozel said if DCPS is able to continue using the free testing program provided by Ethos, she fully intends to take advantage of it.
“I hope that it’s something that is still made available,” she said. “I think it’s still gonna be something that we could utilize in the future. I don’t think COVID is going to just just disappear unfortunately.”
Full DCPS test-to-stay stats:
