Dear Alpha Academy Parent/Guardian:
** ALL TESTS REQUIRE AN APPOINTMENT **
As we continue to assess the COVID-19 situation in order to keep our school safe and healthy, and in conjunction with the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services, Alpha Academy is providing weekly COVID-19 testing on-site at our school. Allowing your child to be tested at school is convenient and saves you as the parent, time and money. In order for your student to participate in this free testing, you will need to register your student at https://home.color.com/covid/sign-up/start…
Registration is FREE and only takes a few minutes.
A parent or guardian must register any minor under 18 years old. Once your child is registered, you will then give a one-time consent and HIPAA authorization to share testing results with all necessary parties. All testing information is confidential and results can be available within hours. Our school nurse will administer an anterior nares nasal swab test that is quick and gentle. (This is NOT the test that tickles the brain!)
COVID-19 procedures are as follows:
If a child has tested positive for COVID-19 or has close contact with a positive individual, that child will be required to complete a 10-day quarantine period and provide a negative COVID-19 test BEFORE they can return to school.
Tests are conducted during school operating hours, Monday – Friday, 8:00 am – 4:00 pm. The school will be administering the RAPID test. PCR Tests take up to 24-48 hours to result. With the PCR test, the student must remain home until the results are back.
You may also obtain a test from a healthcare provider of your choice at the end of the quarantine period and submit this information to the school for verification BEFORE the student returns to school.
If your child’s physician does not offer to test for your child, we will need your permission to test your child here at school. Visit https://home.color.com/covid/sign-up/start… to register to have your child tested.
Acceptable tests are from a licensed medical physician and/or pharmacy. Home COVID tests are not accepted as verification of a COVID-19 reading.
If a PCR test is administered, the student must remain at home until a negative result is received.
om, and needs to be retested, the nurse is able to swab your child from your vehicle at the school. You will need to contact the school nurse at adandrews@alphaacademy.net to schedule an appointment.
Teachers will be able to provide assignments and work for students who are awaiting test results.
Thank you for your cooperation and continued support as we strive to keep our school safe and our students healthy.
Differences in PCR and Rapid Tests
Rapid Testing
Results in 15 mins, processed on-site.
Highly sensitive and can detect infection sometimes before symptoms
Consider the CDC’s recommendations when using antigen testing in nursing homes and other settings. For positive results, especially in low incidence counties, consider performing a confirmatory RT-PCR test within 48 hours.
Remember that positive predictive value (PPV) varies with disease prevalence when interpreting results from diagnostic tests. PPV is the percent of positive test results that are true positives.
PCR Test
24-48 hour result time. Processed in Mako Labs offsite.
Antigen tests for SARS-CoV-2 are generally less sensitive than real-time reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) and other nucleic acid amplification tests (NAATs) for detecting the presence of viral nucleic acid.
However, NAATs can remain positive for weeks to months after initial infection and can detect levels of viral nucleic acid even when the virus cannot be cultured, suggesting that the presence of viral nucleic acid may not always indicate contagiousness.
Proper interpretation of both antigen test results and NAATs (when indicated) is important for accurate clinical management of patients or people with suspected COVID-19, or for identification of infected people when used for screening.
The clinical performance of diagnostic tests largely depends on the circumstances in which they are used. Both antigen tests and NAATs perform best if the person is tested when their viral load is generally highest.
Because antigen tests perform best in symptomatic people and within a certain number of days since symptom onset, antigen tests are used frequently on people who are symptomatic.
Antigen tests also may be informative in diagnostic testing situations in which the person has a known exposure to a person with COVID-19.
