A new addition to this school year has been the weekly COVID testing. The school has tried to break up testing into groups for each period of the day to minimize wasted class time, however, teachers often fail to adhere to their specified time, and when this happens it causes a backup in the line, which leads to long waits for students and faculty to get their testing done.
Especially during this time of year, where COVID cases are on the rise post holidays and with the Omicron variant, the school has opted for individual testing instead of their normal pooled testing. I understand the decision, it’s a quicker way to find out who has tested positive and to keep those people out of the building. On the other hand, it can take a lot of time away from students during the school day. Luckily for my group of students today, the three time slots we had schedule to do testing worked out perfectly, zero waiting in lines, and we were back in the classroom working after only a few minutes.
I don’t see an end to COVID testing this school year, and have a feeling it will remain in place in some form at the beginning of the 22-23 school year as well.