Read the Watertown Nurses Pooled Testing Program Tips and Tricks

“At middle and elementary schools, we have a “traveling” swab station on a cart. Initially we had done swabbing outside on mask breaks but now the weather has made it a little difficult, so we take the cart around to each class and have them come out one by one. At first, we thought this may disrupt learning for too long, but the testing goes quite quickly, and the disruption is minimal. It is helpful to give the teachers a list of who is testing ahead of time in order to help get the kids out of the room and back in.” 

“Setting up a drive-thru window: We are very lucky with our current set up, we have managed to make a “drive thru” station at Watertown Middle School. I and the other testing nurse sit inside the cafeteria with windows open to the front of the building. This allows cars to file in and wrap around the horseshoe. We typically have one of our school resource officers out front and they help direct traffic and remind people to blow their nose and sanitize their hands prior to coming to the window. In the event that they don’t have tissues or hand sanitizer, we have our custodian set out a desk and trash barrel in front of the window so people can blow and sanitize outside before walking over to the window. So now they approach the window, we preopen the swab for them, they pull out JUST the swab, circle each nostril 3 times then plop it into the collection tube and we recap it. This way we are ensuring no contamination and their hands aren’t touching the outside of any of the samples.”