'All hands on deck': TVDSB sorting 146,000 Rapid Test Kits to get them to students ASAP

Thames Valley District School Board (TVDSB) staff volunteers are busy unboxing, sorting and packaging 146,000 Rapid Antigen Test (RAT) kits in order to get them into the hands of students.

“It's all hands on deck," says Cathy Lynd, superintendent of business for TVDSB.

The kits arrived Friday afternoon in boxes of 20 but with only one set of instructions, meaning it would take a lot of help to sort them into packs of two for each student.

The board worked through the weekend to get their logistics in place.

"We engaged our printing department and they're creating 70,000 copies of instructions and labels," says Lynd.Terri Manning is one of the TVDSB staff volunteers in London, Ont. unboxing and sorting the 146,00 Rapid Antigen Tests, Jan. 18, 2022. (Brent Lale / CTV News)"We ordered 100,000 Ziploc bags from one of our vendors and they were able to be delivered on Monday so that we have people picking up the test kits today [Tuesday]. We have two vehicles every 15 minutes going to our warehouse to pick them up. People are masked, we are providing people with hand sanitizer and nitrile gloves to be able to do this either from their work location or from their home."

Lynd estimates around 50 volunteers will be working over the next few days, each of them given a case, which contains 1,080 kits.

"We've had overwhelming support from our staff," says Lynd.

"They're reorganizing their duties and helping out as much as they can during the day and in the evenings. Our warehouse staff is working full out to get these kits out. We're hoping that is going to take about 1,000 total hours, but we'll have a better idea of how long each kit takes as we get started."The TVDSB Printing department in London, Ont. had to create 70,000 copies of instructions to put in the COVID-19 rapid test kit bags to be given to students, Jan. 18, 2022. (Brent Lale / CTV News)A letter from the ministry will be going out to families later this week, explaining the purpose of the RAT's and when they are to be used.

There is also a number of families in the TVDSB that don't speak English. Staff have translated the instructions in 18 different languages and put them on the board’s website. 

The London District Catholic School Board says staff were able to process 32,000 kits and get them out to elementary students. They are still awaiting 20,000 more to be given to the high school students.