Students and staff in Washington, D.C., will be required to submit negative COVID-19 tests before returning to school later this month.
All students in the D.C. Public Schools system will need to submit their negative test results within 24 hours of their first day of school, which falls on Aug. 29 for K-12 students and Sept. 1 for pre-K students. The updated requirements are one of a handful of precautions implemented for the school year to prevent the spread of COVID-19.
CONGRESSIONAL REPUBLICANS DEMAND DC RESCIND STUDENT VACCINE MANDATE
Schools within the district will begin distributing testing kits on Monday, and families must pick up kits from the school their child attends. Results must then be uploaded online the day before school starts.
If a student tests positive, he or she will be barred from attending school in person and must quarantine for five days in accordance with recent guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The Washington Examiner reached out to D.C. Public Schools to ask whether there are any plans for future rounds of testing further into the school year.
The massive testing campaign is the second of its kind for D.C. schools after the district implemented a similar system in January in response to a widespread outbreak of the omicron variant. At the time, school officials required students to test negative before returning to school from winter break.
Students older than 12 years old will also be required to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 to attend class in person, one of the strictest coronavirus rules among schools nationwide. However, the district will not be enforcing a mask mandate, a reversal from policies implemented last year.
The COVID-19 vaccine requirement is due to a law passed by the D.C. Council last year that added the shot to the list of required immunizations for students. If a student does not provide proof of vaccination within 20 days of the beginning of the school year, he or she will not be allowed to attend in person, according to the legislation.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
Roughly 83% of children ages 12-15 are fully vaccinated against COVID-19, as well as 77% of those who are 16-17 years old, according to the D.C. Department of Health.
It’s not clear how the district will enforce the vaccination requirement, as the city has been behind on student immunizations for years. About 25% of students are behind on their required immunizations in the district as of Aug. 10, according to data from the agency.
