Check your child’s backpack this week for rapid antigen COVID-19 tests.

Lakehead Public Schools Superintendent of Education AJ Keene confirms the tests arrived on December 8th and 9th with the larger schools receiving direct shipments and other schools getting access to them via a courier service.

The province announced on November 18th that each kid will take home the kits with participation being voluntary, and any child who does not take the tests will be allowed to return to school in January.

“If there are students we know who are going to be away, then they receive their kits earlier,” Keened noted. “We didn’t want to get them out too early because the first test really shouldn’t happen until December 23rd. We thought if we gave them out at the end of last week, then parents might think that they were supposed to use them this week.”

Keene added that the board did also receive the shipment of polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests that they previously requested for some pilot schools.

“We haven’t really started using those yet because the drop off points are pretty limited,” added Keene. “The (Thunder Bay District) Health Unit has secured a mobile testing site at our former Edgewater Park School (on Victoria Avenue), so that’s been picking up the extra testing that’s had to be done because of the school cases.”

There are six active cases of COVID-19 within the Lakehead Public School Board.