NEW BERN, N.C. (WNCT) – Craven County schools are bringing COVID testing straight to their students.

On January 18, free COVID testing will begin at all Craven County schools. All interested employees and parents/guardians of students will be required to opt-in for their testing service via email. Nurses at every school will be trained to properly administer rapid and PCR tests.

District Lead Nurse Luanne Mack said parents will be notified by email to sign their children up for testing. She said if a student starts to show COVID symptoms in school, they can come to the nurse’s office, the nurse will notify the parents and ask them for a second time for permission to test their child before doing so.

Mack said they prefer their students to stay home if they are experiencing COVID symptoms, and if a student chooses to stay home, they can still call the school nurse and ask for a COVID test at their curbside service.

She said they have received feedback from parents in the community, and overall people are appreciative for their efforts to keep their students healthy and safe.

“We as a school system, want to have testing as one of the mitigation strategies to reduce the spread of this virus because we know that it not only impacts students and families, but it also impacts our community as well,” Mack said.

Mack added that this service will help get fast results, allow people to skip long testing lines, and is free of charge.