A Champaign school district is making COVID testing available to its staff and plans to make it available to students in the second semester.

Superintendent of the Mahomet-Seymour District, Dr. Lindsey Hall told Regional Radio News on the WHOW Morning Show Monday they are partnering with Carle Hospital to make this happen. Voluntary testing of staff begins this week.

According to Dr. Hall, having test results in a timely fashion is going to be very important for the district. She explains having those results quickly will enable them to continue to remain in-person for the time being.

The other component of rapid tests will be getting their students and teachers back to class sooner after a close contact situation or getting tested with symptoms. Dr. Hall says with the quarantine guidelines changing, that will also help. 

Testing will be available at the school and will be conducted through the school nurse. Dr. Hall says while it would have been nice to have access to testing like this much sooner, she is thankful to have it now and hopes it will allow them to remain in-person as the first semester comes to a close in a few weeks.