STORY BY MELODY XU, PHOTO BY EMILY YAO

The Palo Alto Unified School District opened its COVID Clinic to the local community on Nov. 1, as part of the district’s ongoing COVID-19 vaccination and testing efforts.

The testing clinic is open to all community members on Monday–Friday between 10 a.m. and 6 p.m. at the Cubberley Community Center. Prior registration is recommended but not necessary. 

Supporting its site reopenings following the pandemic, PAUSD initially exclusively tested staff before including testing offerings to students on school sites on a scheduled, weekly basis. The district recently partnered with Safeway to offer tests for all residents, including district families.

“This kind of goes back to our commitment of service,” Assistant Superintendent Yolanda Conaway said. “We said, ‘What can we offer to our entire community?’”

According to Conaway, the clinic has already seen success in the past few weeks of operation.

“We’re seeing a lot of visitors just on observation,” Conaway said, “But we hope to get some numbers so that we can see exactly how many of our community members are taking advantage of it.” 

The district has also taken steps for five to 11 year old student vaccinations. The first dose of a “pediatric clinic” took place on Nov. 21 at the Palo Alto High School Peery Family Center, with a second dose scheduled for Dec. 12. Adult booster shots were also administered for staff. 

“I’m proud of the work that our county offices are doing in our public health department,” Conaway said. “Because it’s the effort of all of us, in my opinion, that’s going to really stave this thing off and help us get back to some sense of normalcy in our community.”