Dear Anna Yates Parents/Caregivers, At Emery Unified School District, we seek to maintain a safe environment for employees, students, families, and the community. To support those goals, we have partnered with Concentric by Ginkgo to provide an optional and free pooled testing program.
Pooling can test up to 25 people at one time. All students in a class swab their own noses and place their swabs in a single tube (that’s the pooling step). The samples in that tube are then run as a single sample, using one test.
Tools like pooled testing empower us to make great decisions. Without knowing the specific prevalence of COVID-19 in our school, it’s tough for us to make informed decisions about safeguarding our school community, returning to school, or continuing in-person learning.
Only students with completed consent forms are able to participate in testing. If you do not want your family to participate, your student will not be included in the testing program. Though, we hope you do!
Testing empowers us to make these informed decisions about in-person learning and allows students, teachers, and staff to come to school with peace of mind.
But first, we need your help! We are requesting each family to participate in this program to help safeguard the wellbeing of our entire school community. Please sign the consent request below.
To get started, please fill out the consent form with your permission to perform a COVID-19 pooled test for your student at Anna Yates. This process should take no more than 5 minutes to complete using a computer or a smartphone.
Finally, enter your child’s information, and you’re done!
Note: If you need to provide consent for more than one child, please complete the process once for each child.
If a pool comes back positive, we will perform follow up testing using a rapid antigen test to provide quick tests for any individual in a positive pool.
We have attached additional information about the testing program to this email. If you have other questions, please reach out to our Behavioral Health and Wellness Manager: Kevin W. Edwards, LCSW at: kevin.w.edwards@emeryusd.org. If you would like a call back from Mr. Edwards, please include your phone number in your email along with a request for a call.