February 26, 2021
Dear BB&N Community,
As has been our practice this year, we will conduct mandatory re-entry testing for all students, faculty, and staff who intend to be on campus after Spring Break. While this testing will be similar to what we have done in the past, we have decided to utilize our pooled testing protocol in conjunction with our partners PhysicianOne and the Broad Institute. This testing will be completed by administering anterior nasal swabs to all faculty, staff and students and collecting these pools in groups of 10. This program continues to keep BB&N on the cutting edge of COVID testing protocols and it will significantly reduce the amount of time needed to test our entire community.
Testing will be conducted in a similar fashion to how we opened school after Thanksgiving and Winter Break:
- The testing will be administered on our Upper School campus and Nicholas Athletic Center by BB&N staff with the assistance of our testing partner PhysicianOne. Samples will be processed by the Broad Institute.
- Older students (grades 4-12) and adults will self-swab, consistent with the current practice on campus. Younger students will swab with the assistance of their parent/guardian or PhysicianOne staff.
- Re-entry testing will primarily take place on Sunday, March 28 from 9am-1pm.
- We will make some appointments available Monday, March 29 first thing in the morning. However, there is a chance individuals tested on this date could experience a delay in their clearance to return to campus on April 1st.
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Consistent with our current weekly practice, families may choose to supply an individual PCR test as an alternative to participating in BB&N’s pooled testing. All PCR test samples must be taken Sunday, March 28 or later and results must be received at pooledtesting@bbns.org by 3pm on Wednesday, March 31 for a student to be cleared to return to school on Thursday, April 1.
- School will not be held, remotely or in person, on Monday, March 29.
- All grades B-12 will engage remotely on Tuesday and Wednesday March 30 and 31, in order to give time for all testing results to return. Each campus will be in touch with you about plans for remote learning on March 30 and 31.
- Further detail on times and sign-ups, as necessary, for our on-campus testing dates will be sent in a separate email.
Pooled testing does not generate individual results and if a pooled test result reads for the presence of the virus, the school will contact all of the participants in that pool so that each individual may quarantine until they are able to complete an individual PCR or rapid antigen test. BB&N will administer individual PCR tests on campus for individuals in a pooled test that reads for the virus as soon as possible after receiving the results. The timing of school reopening should, in most cases, allow the retests to occur so that each person can receive a test result before the Thursday, April 1 reopen date for on-campus learning.
As a reminder, we will continue to use our dashboard approach to report the results of our return to school testing. For this testing, we will update the dashboard one extra day during the week—by 5pm on Wednesday March 31. This information will be accessible
on this page, which can also be accessed from the homepage of our parent portal.
Thank you so much for your continuing partnership in helping keep our campuses open for our students. It’s been a team effort, and one that is worth every single ounce of work that it has taken.
Best,
