Dear LNC Families,
We have some good news to share with you…
At the end of November, North Carolina’s Department of Health & Human Services announced it would be conducting a pilot in which a select group of NC schools would receive rapid COVID-19 tests as an additional measure to protect its staff and students from the virus. LNC was contacted by the NCDHHS and invited to apply for the pilot because of the success we have had in developing strong procedural safeguards within our school community and our ability to be successful with this type of pilot. The goal of the pilot is two-fold: 1) to add rapid testing to schools’ arsenals to protect staff and students from the virus and 2) to gather data for the state and county so they may better understand how the virus is spreading in schools. You can read more about it here.
On Friday morning, we learned that LNC had been selected to participate in the State’s COVID-19 rapid testing pilot and by Friday afternoon over 600 rapid antigen tests had been delivered to LNC. Ms. Rebecca Shipman, LNC’s district healthcare coordinator, is being trained today through the Mecklenburg County Health Department on how to administer the tests and the reporting involved in participating in this pilot. Once that training is complete, we can determine how and when we can best use these tests. We will share more details with our community as we learn more.
We are excited to have been selected for this pilot because it provides us an important added layer of protection to keep our staff and students safe. It is gratifying to see that the State identified us as a candidate worthy of pilot participation based on our health and safety protocols and safeguards already in place. The opportunity to participate and provide the State and County with helpful data is consistent with our motto of learning, leading and serving. We look forward to sharing more information with you soon!
