MONTE VISTA — In an effort to shorten quarantine times and to keep students and faculty members safe in schools, Monte Vista School District Superintendent Scott Wiedeman announced that the district is giving parents the choice to have their children tested on a weekly basis for COVID-19.

“I feel it is important to give parents and students as many choices as we can during this pandemic," Wiedeman stated. "We are offering the ability for students to be tested on a weekly basis, hoping this will decrease quarantine times. This is not something that is mandated, we just want to give parents and students as many options as possible. Parents and students have the right to feel safe, and this is a good option for students.”

The Colorado Department of Health and Environment is offering testing students once a week in the Monte Vista School District. It will be a free test. Students, ages 18 years and older, can test without parental permission. Students, ages 17 years and younger, need their parent's permission to be tested.

Although there are incentives being offered for the testing, none of the incentives come out of the school district's pocketbook, this is all being done through the CDPHE.

The free state COVID-19 testing is currently available, according to Wiedeman.

"This is currently hit or miss right now, as the Department of Health is the one doing the testing," Wiedeman stated. "There is a bit of a delay with the testing this week, so we apologize for that."

Monte Vista School District continues to work under its COVID-19 recovery phase plan that was implemented prior to the start of the 2021-22 school year. The district is simply adding to the plan with the testing.

There is currently a sign-up sheet along with permission documents available on the Monte Vista School District Facebook site. For more information, people can contact Superintendent Wiedeman at 719-852-5996.