Westchester County is making it easier for unvaccinated teachers to keep up with the state's weekly COVID-19 testing requirement.

Westchester County Health Commissioner Dr. Sherlita Amler says the county Health Department is rolling out a new program with area schools and labs to allow school staff to get tested right at school.

"By doing surveillance screening, we may be able to identify people who are asymptomatic positive individuals. And by doing that prevent spread so that we don't have large, disruptive quarantines," says Amler.

Vaccinated school staff are not required to get weekly tests.

Students can get tested at school but are not obligated to.

All of the tests will be saliva-based. Either cotton swabs will take a sample off the side of a mouth, or people can spit into a cup at home.

Dr. Joseph Ricca, the superintendent of White Plains Schools, says his students will be able to spit into a cup at home.

All parents have to do is make sure the cup is dropped off at school.

The district will send the cup to a lab, and parents will be directly notified with the results.

The program was rolled out in some schools last month, and so far, 22,000 tests have been done.

News 12 was told that 22 of them have come back positive.