BANQUETE, Texas — The administration at Banquete Independent School District was notified on Thursday that a senior at the high school had tested positive for COVID-19.
The student also has two family members who lived at the same residence, a freshman and a sophomore at Banquete High School.
With STAAR testing scheduled for this week at BISD, Superintendent Dr. Max Thompson, wanted to make sure students could get tested to ensure more students were not COVID-19 positive.
“We do paper testing, and we believe that’s what our students have performed best at, and we were keeping that," Thompson said. "Well, the state only gives you the window this week.
"Had we waited to find out if the freshman and sophomore had tested positive or negative, we might have found that out until Tuesday. So, we would’ve had students out in quarantine, waiting to find out if they should go get tested. Then, they’d be waiting for the test results to get back, and they would’ve missed paper testing this week."
District staff contacted the TLC Medical Center in Calallen to see if it had enough COVID-19 tests for students to go, and when the medical center confirmed, the district made plans to get students tested on Friday.
Friday, the district bused kids to Calallen to get tested for COVID-19. In all, around 70 students were tested, and as of Monday morning, they all returned with negative tests.
“It’s not something that’s going to impact our accountability, but it is an opportunity that those students might miss," Thompson said. "We needed to create the opportunity [to get tested], because some parents might not be able to afford to take students, might not have time to take the students, and we wanted answers.
"I can tell you as of this morning, all of the students tested through TLC tested negative."