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Sign up deadline extended for weekly student COVID-19 testing in the Princeton Public Schools

The Princeton Public Schools district has extended the deadline for students to sign up for free weekly COVID-19 testing. The signup portal will remain open indefinitely. To enroll a student, parents must sign a consent form and HIPAA waiver online.

Paid for by the State of New Jersey, the pool testing program, where numerous saliva samples are tested together, is conducted on a weekly basis. If a pool test result is negative, then all the samples are presumed negative with the single test. If a student is in a pool that tests positive, the lab will be able to identify which sample is positive within hours. If a student is identified as positive, only that student will isolate. District officials said there will be no quarantines for students until after contact tracing is completed. Close contacts showing proof of vaccination will not be required to quarantine. Unvaccinated students will quarantine only if they have been in close contact with a confirmed positive person.

Pools will either be random groups of 24 samples. In some instances, the pools could be a specific group, such as a sports team.