School seeks to instill confidence in safety

Meadows providing on-site virus testing

A Las Vegas private school that reopened last week for in-person classes is aiming to provide some added assurance for students and parents by providing regular on-campus COVID-19 testing for students and employees.

The Meadows School in Summerlin, which has about 880 students in preschool through 12th grades, is partnering with University Medical Center to provide the testing two days a week.

Each week, about 10 percent of the school’s population is tested. Employees are tested every two weeks, and students are randomly selected for testing.

Other Las Vegas Valley private schools also have done some testing of staff, but The Meadows School appears to be the only one offering regular testing of both employees and students.

The school, which began its school year Aug. 17, has a 90-day agreement with UMC through October, and the arrangement could be extended.

“The assumption is that we will keep testing as long as we need to in order to keep confident that we can operate safely,” Head of School Jeremy Gregersen said, noting that the health of the larger community is affected too.

Gregerson said having good information about who is sick allows for informed decision-making about quarantining individual families, classrooms, grade levels or school divisions.

Some local schools with in-person classes recently have reported COVID-19 cases.

Bishop Gorman High School, a private Catholic campus in Las Vegas, on Monday reported its second case within a week.

UNLV reported two cases among students who visited the campus last week, the first since fall instruction resumed Monday. The university, though, reported more than 60 cases from mid-June through mid-August among people who had been on campus this summer.

Before reopening, The Meadows School provided COVID-19 testing for its approximately 150 faculty members and staff. Two tested positive and were quarantined at home.

“They were never around students,” Gregersen said. The two employees later tested negative, via two tests more than 24 hours apart, before returning to work, he said.

The Meadows School is one of many private schools in the Las Vegas Valley offering full-time in-person instruction amid the pandemic, while providing distance learning options.

The Clark County School District and many public charter schools are beginning the school year with distance education.

The Meadows School is paying UMC to provide testing, Gregersen said. He declined to share the cost but noted the rate typically ranges from $100 to $200 per test. The school’s board agreed to cover the cost by using rainy day funds, he said.

Mikaela Hall The Meadows School Kim Jacobs, an employee at The Meadows School, undergoes COVID-19 testing. The school is partnering with University Medical Center to provide testing two days a week.