The Illinois Department of Public Health and Shield Illinois has offered to provide free COVID-19 testing to all the public schools in the state outside Chicago.
Last year Shield Illinois provided schools, community colleges and universities with saliva based COVID-19 tests at no cost to the schools and this year they’re doing it again.
Shield Illinois provided testing for more than a million students and staff last year.
The rapid test produces results on an average of 16 hours after collecting the test.
Vienna High School Nurse Sherie Smith says that quick turn around helped keep students in school and spend less time in quarantine.
“They would be picked up and then taken to Springfield in the evening and we would get results in the middle of the night, so when I would wake up in the morning, we'd send a student home and we weren't really sure. When I woke up in the morning, I would have a positive or negative and I would be able to reach out to the parents to let them know what the you know, what their end result was and then make a plan for the student's return.”
Schools have until July 15th to sign up for the next school year.
