During the San Marcos CISD board meeting on Aug. 17, athletic director and head football coach John Walsh announced a partnership between the district and Urgent Care for Kids that will provide free COVID-19 tests to the district’s student-athletes.
“It started with (SMCISD Superintendent Michael) Cardona. And his leadership with the cabinet has, you know, overturned every stone you can possibly overturn to make sure our students and our faculty have an efficient and safe place to go to work,” Walsh said. “And so that was just one of those stones that needed to be turned over. And it took us a while to understand the systems and the protocol to make sure, you know, we weren't just partnering with something that was unrealistic. And we were thorough and we feel like it's gonna benefit us a lot.”
Walsh said the test San Marcos will receive is the same one that the MLB and multiple college football teams are currently utilizing. The tests will be administered by the athletic training staff, using the proper personal protective equipment. The tests can be batched in groups of 50 and results produced in 15 minutes, meaning 200 tests can be conducted per hour. Walsh said the current plan is to conduct tests weekly but that they will look into increasing the number of tests once they have a better understanding of how to operate them.
