Hamilton school board releases plan to get more students, staff into targeted COVID-19 testing

Hamilton's public school board is pushing forward with a plan to try and get more students and staff to participate intargeted, asymptomatic COVID-19 testing.

Saltfleet District High Schoolwill offer voluntarytesting on Friday from 10:30 a.m. to 7 p.m.

Students and staff who attend the schoolon Highland Road West in Stoney Creek will be eligible, as will students and staff from the following schools:

• Billy Green Elementary School.
• Mount Albion Elementary School.
• Gatestone Elementary School.
• TapleyTown Elementary School.
• Bellmoore Elementary School.
• Shannen Koostachin Elementary School.

There will also betesting atOrchard Park Secondary School on Mar. 5 from 10:30 a.m. to 7 p.m., and atBernie Custis Secondary School on Mar. 12 from 11:30 a.m. to 7 p.m.

Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board director Manny Figueiredosaid the local public health unit chose these schools in this order.He saidthe school board is hosting the testing on Fridays instead of Saturdays.

HWDSB shifts testing from Saturdays to Fridays

"Our hope is increasingvoluntary participation from staff and students, especially in the high school because their half-day ends at around 11 a.m. and they have 90 minutes to get home or go to the library for their remote classes in the afternoon so by being present thereon a Friday, that was our strategy that more people might come," he saidin an interview on Thursday.

"And also if there areany cases [detected on Friday], we can process them over the weekend ... we eliminate themcoming into school, we can process and address any kind of cohorts that can self-isolate and we can do that over the weekend right away."

On Thursday, Friday and Saturday, the Catholic board is also hosting COVID-19 testing.

St. Ann Catholic Elementary School will hosttesting inHamilton on Thursday from 5 p.m. to8 p.m. for its students and staff. St. Ann's currently has an outbreak after two staff members wereinfected.

On Friday,St. John Henry Newman Catholic Secondary School will host testing on Friday from 3 p.m. to 9 p.m. for its students and staff.

And on Saturday, it will have testing from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. for the following schools:

• Immaculate Heart of Mary Catholic Elementary School.
• St. Martin of Tours Catholic Elementary School.
• St. David Catholic Elementary School.
• St. Gabriel Catholic Elementary School.
• St. Clare of Assisi Catholic Elementary School.
• St. Francis Xavier Catholic Elementary School.
• St. Agnes Catholic Elementary School.
• Our Lady of Peace Catholic Elementary School.

Public health chose what schools host testing: HWDSB director

Local school boards previously did targeted, asymptomatic testing at Bishop Ryan Catholic Secondary School and Orchard Park Secondary School. While there were no positive cases among the 21 staff and 65 students tested,Figueiredosaid he hopes the revised plan will see the number of peoplegetting tested rise.

The province has asked school boardsto hostasymptomatic, targeted testing in at least five per centof the elementary and secondary schools within their jurisdiction each week. They are also asked to prioritizeschools in areas of high transmission, high case numbers and focus on schools where access to testing may be challenging.

Bernie Custis, for example, normally takes in students from some of Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board'shigh-priority schools, which are inneighbourhoods with higher rates of poverty as identifiedby census or community demographic data. Public health data has shown people in lower income areas have a higher chance of contracting COVID-19.

Figueiredo said another way to bolster participation is to havetestingcycle back to schools that already hosted a session.The plan may also change if the school board sees a large-scale school outbreak.

"It's another measure within the other measures ... don't let your guard down with all other health measures like the masking, the distancing, the frequency of washing hands," he said.

Asymptomatic testing has detected positive cases

The city's medical officer of health previously saidthe rapid, antigen tests could be usedto help understand the spread of COVID-19 in schools and find more cases within dismissed cohorts.

Asymptomatic testing has detected some cases of COVID-19 in local students, the most recent example coming on Wednesday.

A St. Teresa of Avila Catholic Elementary School student who was isolating after an outbreak at the school tested positive for the virus, but the Hamilton-Wentworth Catholic District School Board says they haveno new school-related close contacts.

The outbreak caused the school to close last week after at leastfour staff members and four students had tested positive for COVID-19.

4 new COVID-19 cases in Hamilton schools

Besides the St. Teresa case, there were three other COVID-19 cases reported Thursday, two of which had exposed other studentsand staff.

ASt. Thomas More Catholic Secondary School student last in the buildingon Feb. 22 tested positive for the virus.ANora Frances Henderson Secondary School staff member also tested positive.