This is a sponsored post with the Washington Department of Health and Learn to Return and the opinions in this blogpost are my own.
I can’t even begin to explain how thankful my barely 13 year olds were when they were finally able to get back to school in the fall after missing in person school for over a year. And most likely this is your kids too. They had barely gotten the hang of middle school when 2020 happened and everything went online. They missed their friends. They missed their activities. And they totally missed all their sports. So losing school again is something they are adamant that they don’t ever want to do.
So now that we are doing more things and seeing more people and getting back to some of the shadows of our old lives, they also want to do all the things they can to keep school open. They have gotten two vaccine doses (and are now hoping for a booster) and they wear masks indoors. And now we’re learning about covid testing in schools in Washington with Learn to Return
What is Learn to Return?
Learn to Return is a program that has partnered with over 480 schools in Washington to provide free and easy COVID-19 testing in schools for students. Testing for COVID-19 is one way that we can stop it from spreading so having this free and readily available is such an important thing for getting back to school.
I am not sure if my guys’ school is partnered with Learn to Return (and I’ll definitely be asking after Winter Break). But I do know that my boys are playing basketball and one of the forms we signed was that kids who are unvaccinated need to be tested frequently in order to play on the team and even though my guys are vaccinated I would totally be okay with them being tested frequently too. I also know we recently got an email about a centralized COVID-19 testing site for schools in our area so maybe that has something to do with Learn to Return as well.
Regardless, I’m really glad that we are focusing on COVID-19 testing in schools because that is one step that makes things easier for parents and it makes it safer for our kids and keeps them in school. The only hard thing about COVID-19 testing to me is the cost and if these tests are free and available for schools to use, the more we can use them and the more we know if there is COVID-19 in our schools or not and if we find out there is then we are more prepared to help stop the spread.
Testing is easy and painless with shallow nasal swabs
Testing has vastly improved from the early days when we just started learning about COVID-19. Our family is a two hour drive north in Canada and in order to see them we have to test and sometimes test multiple times every time we go. We have had tests that swab our mouths, ones that swab the inside of our noses, ones that have tested both inside our noses and our mouths and none of them have been painful or very time-consuming like the tests in 2020. And all the tests for Learn to Return are shallow nasal swabs. My kids can both easily do these tests now themselves and it’s about the same effort (or even less) as brushing and flossing our teeth which we do everyday. We’ve had to schedule all of our tests on our own and also we have bought tests to do at home so having tests in schools is something that would make our lives easier.
Do you want to learn more about COVID-19 testing in schools in Washington?
You can use the Learn to Return website to find more answers to questions about COVID-19 testing in schools. You can also find out more about other ways to access covid tests in your area through the Washington State Department of Health Site too. We gathered with a small number of vaccinated family and friends over the holidays and we tested before gathering with antigen tests we bought from a local drugstore and felt a lot better about gathering too.
Terumi Pong is a Seattle-based family travel writer and mom of twin teenage boys. She loves coffee and pastries, shopping local and looking for greener ways to live. She is also known as Scout’s mom (Scout is a 5ish pound little black yorkie-poo)