After Sacramento Charter School Tests All Staff, Students No New Cases Found
SACRAMENTO (CBS13) — No new positive COVID-19 cases were discovered Friday after a Sacramento charter school decided to test all staff and students when nearly two dozen cases were discovered on campus.
According to the Sacramento Unified School District, the school is New Joseph Bonnheim, which is located near the Tahoe Park area and began in-person instruction on Aug. 9.
The order for mandated testing to prevent further spread came from Sacramento County Public Health Thursday after 23 positive cases were discovered, the district said. County health officials said it is likely transmission of the virus happened off-campus.
In a press release Saturday, the district said no new cases were identified as part of the rapid response team deployment on Friday. Separately from the required testing, the district did identify one additional case as a result of a pending test from the previous day, brining the total case count to 24.
"The school has a total of 270 students and 23 staff, so this equates to 7.8% positives for the school population. Given that this is a relatively small, tight-knit community, and that the region as a whole has high community case counts and transmission, it appears more likely that transmission is occurring outside of the school campus," the county said in a letter to the district earlier this week.
The district said it is prioritizing testing with an aggressive approach: It is providing testing at all of its 75 school sites and the Serna Center each weekday in an effort to identify and mitigate the spread of COVID-19 transmission on its campuses.
The district is required by the county to continue to test Bonnheim students and staff weekly over the next three weeks.