Dear Bancroft Community,
We hope you were able to enjoy time with family and friends over the Thanksgiving break. As we return to campus, we are taking a precautionary step of testing all students, faculty, and staff to ensure the ongoing health of our community. We will be providing every community member (students, faculty, and staff) with a take-home COVID-19 Rapid Antigen Test tomorrow, Wednesday, December 1st.
Instructions to administer the test can be found here and will be provided with each test. The test itself should only take 20 minutes to complete and we are asking everyone to complete the test at home on Wednesday evening. Negative test results do not need to be reported. A positive test result should be immediately communicated to our School Nurse Liza Marzilli who will advise on the next steps. Anyone with a positive test result should NOT come to school.
We have successfully navigated the COVID-19 pandemic with no on-campus spread since the fall of 2020! We remain confident in our approach to limiting risk on campus, and this round of testing will provide valuable reassurance of our individual health following the first major holiday break of the winter season. The overall results of this testing will also give us important information as we continue to increase our programming on campus and consider how to manage health and safety measures this winter. We have access to additional testing for use this winter if we need it and will likely conduct additional testing following winter break.
We are further asking all students, faculty, and staff to complete this consent form so we may provide on-campus testing if it becomes necessary. Please complete the consent form as soon as possible if you haven't already.
It is important that we stay vigilant and keep practicing the health and safety protocols that have gotten us to this point. The more members of our community that are protected, the more activities we will be able to do together:
- If you are eligible for vaccination or a booster, schedule an appointment as soon as possible. Update the School Nurse regarding your vaccination status.
- Stay home if you are symptomatic for COVID-19 or if a member of your household tests positive. Communicate your health status through the My MedBot application and the School Nurse.
- Practice good hand hygiene and mask-wearing.
Our extensive health and safety protocol document can be found here for your reference.
We appreciate your cooperation and understanding as we continue to take all necessary steps to remain open, continue our in-person learning, and keep our community healthy and safe. I am pleased with our record of ZERO COVID-19 in-school transmission on campus to date as a result of our collective efforts. With only three COVID-19 cases with the potential to transmit at any point this school year, we remain confident that we are doing the right things here at Bancroft. Let us continue to be leaders and set a great example as we move forward.
If you have any questions regarding administering the test, please contact Liza Marzilli.
Best,
Trey