April 23, 2021
Procedural playbook gives school leaders a practical, trusted guide for reducing risk of COVID-19
ATLANTA – School administrators face a challenging task of reducing the spread of COVID-19 at their academic facilities. To support these leaders, the Global Health Crisis Coordination Center (GHC3)’s Back 2 School program partnered with the RADx Tech program, a component of the National Institutes of Health Rapid Acceleration of Diagnostics (RADxSM) initiative, and Community Organized Relief Effort (CORE) to develop the When to Test K-12 Playbook (whentotest.org/k-12/), a guide for how to safely conduct in-person classes and implement an effective testing program.
“The K-12 Playbook offers practical guidance on how COVID-19 prevention and containment efforts, combined with the latest testing strategies, including pooled PCR, can minimize the spread of COVID-19 in a school environment,” said Stephanie Adams, PhD, Director of Life Sciences for GHC3. “This guidance is particularly critical in view of the nationwide program for testing in schools this fall. COVID-19 information can be overwhelming; the playbook can help leaders to translate scientific guidance while also operationalizing it.”
The When To Test K-12 Playbook is an educational guide to assist schools and organizations who are currently conducting or considering in-person classes. This Playbook is a compendium to WhenToTest.org’s COVID-19 Testing Impact Calculator, a free tool to model how different approaches to testing and other mitigation tactics, such as mask usage and contact tracing, can curb the spread of COVID-19. The tool was co-developed by the Consortia for Improving Medicine with Innovation and Technology (CIMIT) and Massachusetts Institute of Technology Institute for Data Systems and Society (MIT IDSS).
“We created WhenToTest.org to provide organizations with a comprehensive set of resources to support them in implementing effective COVID-19 testing programs. We are especially thrilled to add the K-12 Playbook to the site in order to help schools foster a safe learning environment for children,” said Susan Moreira, Education Lead in the Deployment Core for the RADx Tech program. “We will continue to provide more resources for schools and other organizations in the coming weeks.”
“Empowering teachers, students, parents, and administrators with the practical knowledge they need to ensure they can protect themselves from COVID-19 is critical to promoting a safe and comfortable learning environment,” said CORE President and COO Matt O’Connell. “We were very proud to partner with the Global Health Crisis Coordination Center and the RADx Tech program and grateful for their commitment to supporting our educators in this unprecedented crisis.”
Educators and administrators are encouraged to:
Download the Playbook at whentotest.org/k-12.
Download the GHC3 Back 2 School checklist at globalhealthc3.org/back-2-school/.
Download the K-12 Playbook Social Media Toolkit.
This project was funded in part by the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering, National Institutes of Health, through the NIH RADx℠ Initiative via grant #U54EB015408.
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About GHC3
The Global Health Crisis Coordination Center (GHC3), a division of the Center for Global Health Innovation, connects private sector resources to public sector and healthcare needs for COVID-19 and other healthcare crises around the globe. By harnessing the power of the private sector to bring technology, logistics, and innovation, GHC3 can supplement government crisis and response. For more information about GHC3, visit them online at globalhealthc3.org, or on facebook /globalhealthc3, twitter (@globalhealthc3), or LinkedIn (@globalhealthc3).
About CORE
CORE (Community Organized Relief Effort) is a nonprofit organization co-founded by Sean Penn and Ann Lee that is dedicated to saving lives and strengthening communities affected by or vulnerable to crisis. Within hours of the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, Penn mobilized a powerful network to take immediate action. More than 10 years later, CORE continues to lead sustainable programs focused on four pillars: emergency relief, disaster preparedness, environmental resiliency and community building. The organization has expanded beyond Haiti to support communities in The Bahamas, Puerto Rico and the United States. Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, CORE has been operating free testing sites across the country alongside local partners, providing essential resources and contact tracing services as well as part of its integrated “CORE 8” approach to combat the pandemic. In 2021, CORE is working with its partners nationwide to ensure safe and equitable distribution of vaccines as they become available to the communities the organization serves.
More information: www.coreresponse.org and follow CORE on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter.
