Beginning Monday, November 8, Princeton Public Schools implemented a new COVID-19-testing program in order to sample a student population that may be harboring asymptomatic cases. Mirimus Inc., a private company is in charge of administering tests for PPS and multiple other school districts in New Jersey. This program aims to help the district identify COVID-19 cases sooner and to ensure a safer learning environment for the younger, unvaccinated students at PPS.

Students with parental consent to get tested went to a school site and gave spit tests to administrators, who then collected the samples for analysis. If COVID-19 is detected, polymerase chain reaction tests would be conducted on smaller sample groups to isolate which individual had the virus.

With this new testing opportunity, PPS hopes to catch COVID-19 cases before they can spread, minimizing the chances of an outbreak at school.

“The main purpose is to keep schools open. You know, we’re trying to prevent in-school spread of COVID-19,” said PPS Director of Special Services Micki Crisafulli. “You might have heard of other districts, even last year, where they had to shut down the whole school ... So we’re trying to avoid that this year by doing this testing.”

This program lessens uncertainty about COVID-19 for the students signed up within the six schools. Because of that, Crisafulli thinks that the district created this program at the right moment.

“The Department of Education highly recommends that school districts run this type of testing when their COVID-19 cases in the area are in the moderate to high range,” said Crisafulli. “We’ve been in the moderate range for quite a while.”

While it’s catered towards the younger, unvaccinated students at PPS, the program is open to everyone. Students can sign up through a link on the PPS website and with the permission of their parents, are able to participate in the program free of charge.

“We currently have 518 students who have been signed up for it by their parents. And that could change weekly,” Crisafulli said.

While participating in this program has many benefits, some parents still had their reservations about signing their children up.

“Parents were initially concerned that all students in a positive ‘pool’ would have to quarantine if one student is positive, but that is not the case,” said Public Information Officer for PPS Elizabeth Collier. “[That is because] Mirimus hopes to identify the positive person within a few hours of the pool testing positive.”

Students have welcomed this addition to COVID-19 safety procedures.

“It will be an easy and accessible way to test students and keep our school safe from the spread of COVID,” said Adam Stein ’24, a student who signed up for the program.

This new program also makes Jaiden Xu ’25 feel better about the COVID-19 situation at PHS.“

It keeps us alert of COVID-19 cases. I think that with all the district alerts and human interaction, it will help tremendously,” Xu said.

Collier believes that the testing itself has very few, if any, disadvantages.

“It’s non-invasive. I can’t see any drawbacks. And I think that it will help to keep our entire district school population healthier,” Collier said.

Looking into the future, the district does not yet have a set timeframe for the program due to the unpredictability of the pandemic.

“It’s really up in the air at this point,” said Crisafulli. “We see it continuing, but you know, nobody knows what’s going to happen with this pandemic. We’re just always monitoring and then making decisions from there based on what the numbers are telling us.”

While the program may be adjusted as the pandemic changes, Crisafulli believes that it will have an immediate impact on PPS in the months to come.

“This plan is really beneficial because ... we can catch those cases where people don’t even realize that they’re infected early, we can prevent them from spreading into friends and minimize the disruption to school ... That’s really the goal,” Crisafulli said.