For the record the “announcement” actually started Saturday just after school districts finished rounding the bases and turned in their mandated reopening plans to the state education and health departments. Then the governor said this about those plans and whether parents are confident they are safe for their children, “How are you going to test the students? How many are you going to test per day? How long will it take to turnaround the tests? And where are you going to get the testing capacity?”

Then on Monday when speaking again during his update about parents’ trust in sending their kids back to school Cuomo said, “I’ll tell you what they’re asking me. I’ll tell you what they’re going to ask every school district. How are you going to test?”

The governor also wanted to stress that as far as families are concerned, “the devil is in the details.”

So we looked for details and found them on page 41 of The New York State Department of Education’s guidance to schools for reopening.

It reads like this, “It is strongly recommended that schools comply with CDC guidance and not conduct COVID-19 testing or require testing or antibody testing of students or staff members. The decision of whether a test needs to be conducted should be determined by a healthcare provider or the local department of health.”

It goes on later to state, “Schools wanting to perform COVID-19 testing must apply and be approved as a limited service laboratory.”

Laurrie says he looked over the 144 page document again and spoke with some of his counterparts in other districts.

“We didn’t plan for this,” he said. “We didn’t write this into our reopening plan. Nor do I think it’s feasible with the testing capabilities that we have in Niagara Falls right now.”