GFA Administers Testing After Thanksgiving Break
Joseph Lublinsky ’24
On Nov. 29-30, all GFA students and faculty members had access to a drive-thru PCR COVID-19 test on the GFA campus, as part of the requirement that all community members be tested after returning from Thanksgiving break.
“Everybody will stay in their car, and people will sign up online for the approximate time that they will be here,” GFA School Nurse Kathleen Raby said, interviewed before the break. “Thirty minutes before you get your saliva test, we don’t want you to eat or drink, no smoking or vaping going on, and no brushing your teeth.”
After this process was completed, the tests were then sent to a lab in Virginia, and if someone was positive, they were notified by the following Tuesday or Wednesday morning.
“We are going to do the more accurate test, which is called the PCR test,” Raby said. “Recently, they came out that you can do the same PCR test that you can do with the nasal swabs with saliva. It’s easier for people to spit into the tube instead of ramming that thing into your nose.”
GFA worked with a company called Everpoint, run out of Greenwich, CT. The school researched and thought hard on which company it should execute this plan with, and Everpoint is what it eventually decided on.
“We definitely wanted a company that understood us—integrity, privacy—and they complied with all of that,” Chief Financial and Operations Manager Jennifer Campbell said.
“We did speak to other people in the field who were doing this in other institutions, but we eventually came back to this company, who we are very impressed with,” Head of School Bob Whelan said.
GFA will be aiming to run these tests after more upcoming breaks, especially during winter and early spring. Heading into the indoor season, and with college kids arriving home, it is expected that there will be an increase in positive cases, which makes it more important to keep track of cases within school.
“We will basically hit a hard reset button after Thanksgiving break and after December-January break, so that everyone comes back knowing that we’re clear for the time,” Whelan said.
Although the number of positive cases at GFA has remained low, there have been more positive cases reported in other schools in the area, which may affect whether the school shifts to distance learning.
“We would not make that decision,” Raby said. “We work very closely with the Westport-Weston Health District, and if we were to shut down, they would be the ones telling us to shut down.”
“We would look to hear from them,” Whelan said. “It’s hard to imagine a situation where we would defy their direction. I can't see that happening.”
As the school heads indoors, it becomes even more important to follow the necessary guidelines to keep positive cases to a minimum.
“I am strongly pushing that we stay outdoors as much as possible,” Raby said.
“Statistically, we’ll get some positives,” Whelan said. “We're not immune to the statistics out in the world, but it will also remind us to not let our guard down.”
“The directive that we all got from our head of school is that we want everyone on this campus for as long as we can have them here, and that’s been our ‘sub mission statement’ since the summertime,” Campbell said.
“Testing is crucial if we want to stay in school,” Raby added. “As a school, we’ve been able to put so many things in place, like having classes outdoors and handwashing stations, an isolation room, to help navigate the situation, and as a school we are very lucky.”
