Texas Border Business
EDINBURG – The Edinburg Consolidated Independent School District recently joined the state’s K-12 COVID-19 Testing Project in a move to add an extra level of protection from the coronavirus for students and staff.
The testing project is a joint effort between the Texas Education Agency (TEA) and the Texas Division of Emergency Management (TDEM) to provide rapid tests and personal protective equipment to schools across the state.
“Edinburg CISD was allotted 12,640 individual test kits to use on our staff and students,” said ECISD Registered Nurse Anisa Paz. “With our District, we are very blessed that we have registered nurses at every campus. Our nurses are certified and trained by the state in order to become test administrators for this exam.”
As a part of the project, Edinburg CISD received Abbott BinaxNOW test kits and personal protective equipment. According to TDEM, the program’s only mandate is the required state and federal reporting when the actual test kit is used.
“It is a nasal exam. It is not deep into the nares,” said Paz. “It takes less than 30 seconds.”
The nurses receive the results within 15 minutes and provide the students and staff results within one to two hours via text message or email.
According to TEA, the tests are highly accurate, with 97-98 percent accuracy rates for symptomatic individuals.Â
“We have testing kits on every single one of our campuses,” Paz said.
