San Diego Unified School District resumed its COVID-19 testing Tuesday as a small number of students and educators head back to school after the winter holiday.
Superintendent Cindy Marten and teachers union president Kisha Borden visited Penn Elementary in the Paradise Hills neighborhood today where they received their first COVID-19 tests of the new year.
While campuses remain largely closed, a few high-needs students are receiving on-campus instruction. In partnership with UC San Diego, the school district is making sure all students and staff who are regularly on campus are getting tested once every two weeks.
“We’re happy to be able to provide testing to all of our students and all of our staff every two weeks because we know that’s the cadence or frequency of testing that will prevent 90% of the spread,” Marten said.
The district’s testing program started on Dec. 14 at 10 elementary schools. The district plans to eventually open testing sites at all of its campuses in the coming months. The next group of testing sites will open at additional elementary schools on Tuesday, Jan. 19.
“The intent is every single campus will have a testing center just like you see here today,” Marten said. “That’s at 180 campuses.”
