GREENSBORO, N.C. — Every day during the week, yellow Guilford County school buses park in neighborhoods throughout the district and pass out meals. When schools first shut down, it meant thousands and thousands of kids who rely on school assisted lunches would go without.
So, the school district, like many others in the state, started handing out meals in kids' neighborhoods. The district asked bus drivers, who needed the work after schools closed, to pass out the bag meals.
The school district passes out more than 40,000 lunches a week at 100 locations around the district. The meals are not elaborate but it’s something, and when you often go without food, every meal helps.
The program seemed to be working well but after a couple weeks of passing out meals to students, a few bus drivers reached out to News 2 about safety concerns. The drivers are given masks and gloves by the district, but the lunches are handed directly to another person.
Several drivers we spoke with said they did not feel safe and wanted the district to provide some better guidelines to keep students and parents at least six feet away when handing out meals.
A couple days after the first bus driver reached out to us, several others called with the same concerns. News 2 then reached out to the Guilford County School District to see what could or would be done to allow drivers to stay six feet away when passing out meals.
News 2 spoke with a few different people at the district and shared the concerns and complaints from bus drivers. We gave the district a couple days to investigate the issue and get back to us. The district declined our request for an interview, but gave us this statement:
“Employee safety is of the utmost importance to us, which is why we’re practicing social distance guidelines and are following public health and state school board guidance on these issues. We also have provided employees with masks, gloves, and hand sanitizer. We encourage employees to share any suggestions or concerns they have with their supervisors or human resources.”
We again reached out to the district wanting to know if it would change how it went about distributing meals. The fact the district is serving a population in need is commendable, but the procedures in place do not follow CDC social distancing guidelines.
Some school districts have suspended meal programs after a bus driver or workers tested positive for COVID-19. The drivers we spoke with want a social distancing zone so they stay at least six feet away from anyone getting lunch. They also mentioned it would be nice if parents and kids wore masks when picking up food.
It took almost a week, but the district did eventually grant our interview request. The Executive Director for Transportation told us this: “We are going to develop a plan to keep everyone safe and that’s every employee and citizen. Our job is to make sure everyone is safe,” said Marlon Watson.
The district said it will look at ways to better distribute the food and hopes to have a plan in place this week. What that will look like is unclear, but Watson said it will involve feedback from drivers passing out the meals.