Mills Administration Offers Free At-Home COVID-19 Tests to All Maine Schools

April 7, 2022

Up to 1.1 million tests available for schools to distribute to Maine students and staff members

AUGUSTA — The Mills Administration announced today that it is making 1.1 million at-home COVID-19 rapid antigen tests available to every school in the state to distribute to students and staff, through two federally funded efforts aimed at limiting the spread of COVID-19.

For schools that choose to participate, the Maine Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) will offer to supply every school student and staff member with a free at-home test kit containing five to six tests. This would total approximately 1.1 million tests if every K-12 public and private school in Maine chose to fully participate in the program. Schools may place their orders now through April 15. Test kits will be shipped to schools beginning the week of April 25 and may take several weeks to arrive depending on the size of the orders.

DHHS will provide the one-time allotment of tests to schools through two federally funded initiatives. The U.S. Department of Health of Human Services has increased the number of at-home tests available to schools by 10 million per month, as part of its plan to keep schools safely open for full-time in-person learning. In addition to those tests, DHHS is supplying schools from the Siemens Clinitest allotment announced last month, as part of its plan to use the allotment to support ongoing needs as the pandemic continues, in addition to supporting child care facilities.

“Access to free, fast, and convenient testing is an important tool in protecting the health of Maine students and school staff as they go about their daily lives in our classrooms and communities,” said Governor Janet Mills. “I encourage Maine schools to sign up for this new opportunity, made possible through the support of the Federal government.”

“This new testing option will help families and school staff to quickly identify cases of COVID-19 in individuals who are close contacts, or have symptoms, to prevent them from unknowingly spreading this highly contagious disease while at school,” said DHHS Commissioner Jeanne Lambrew and Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention Director Nirav D. Shah. “We encourage schools to take advantage of this opportunity as we remain vigilant against the spread of new variants. The best defense against COVID-19 remains vaccination, and we urge Maine people to get vaccinated and boosted.”

“These tests provide additional resources for Maine schools as they continue down a path of recovery and normalcy for all who work in and learn in our schools, while still working heroically to meet the challenges caused by the pandemic,” said Education Commissioner Pender Makin.

“Providing schools and families access to free COVID-19 tests is essential to ensuring the health and safety of everyone in our schools, and Maine’s school leaders welcome the news that additional tests will be available to all of our schools,” said Eileen King, Executive Director, Maine School Superintendents Association.

Participating schools and SAUs may distribute this supply of at-home tests during this spring, summer, or fall, at their discretion.

In addition to this distribution of at-home COVID-19 antigen test kits to schools, DHHS encourages school staff and families to request free tests through the Federal Free COVID Tests Program and Project Access COVID tests (ACT). For more information, visit Maine's COVID-19 Testing website.

In this new phase of the COVID-19 pandemic, the State of Maine is shifting its focus on testing toward securing home tests, as the quality, accessibility, and affordability of home tests for COVID-19 have increased. DHHS has distributed nearly 120,000 Federally funded tests to child care facilities across the state to help limit the spread of COVID-19 while minimizing job disruptions for parents and employers. Through the successful Project ACT pilot, DHHS has made free tests available directly to Maine people by mail order. As of April 7, Maine households have ordered 261,375 tests through Project ACT.

Maine’s expansion of home testing capacity also complements PCR and rapid tests provided at pharmacies and other sites. DHHS will continue through the fall its testing capacity in partnership with IDEXX, Shield T3, and Walgreens which administers BinaxNOW rapid tests at no cost to consumers.