Interesting reaction by the School Board. It would have been really nice if the journalist would have provided some actual details of the testing, such as the number of schools, classrooms, whether there were follow-up tests included in the cost, etc.
And now we know more. Only 10 percent testing of ground contact rooms are required, so the total price for 396 tests would certainly raise eyebrows. Recommending ANSI/AARST MALB procedures would probably be a tough sell at that rate.
Raw calculation: $65,000 / 396 --> $164 per test. i'll admit to curiosity as to what the contract delivers in the full scope of things, how competitive the bids were, etc. Also as to what options CT might allow in terms of districts getting staff trained and managing their own test deployments/retrievals/submissions, at least for initial screening work.
Interesting that you would only test 10% in a school, that is usually the number of rooms we find high in a commercial building/school our guidance in Canada is to test 100% of ground contact rooms with 3 month tests, then review high test for occupied hrs. (definition of occupied is sometimes challenging) .......