Kansas City schools suspend free meal program after workers contract coronavirus
Kansas City Public Schools announced Monday it has suspended its free meal distribution to students after learning that a food service worker is presumed positive for COVID-19.
The district, which had one of the largest food distribution operations among schools in the Kansas City area, handed out its last breakfasts and lunches on Monday.
“This was not an easy decision,” said Ray Weikal, district spokesman. “We understand that many of our families depend on school meals to help meet the nutritional needs of their children.”
This is the second case of coronavirus among the district’s food service workers. A few weeks ago, a worker who was out of town at the time tested positive.
Officials gave no timeline for when the operation would resume but suggested families go to the Harvesters Community Food Network website to locate food pantries and mobile distribution sites. And Children’s Mercy Hospital is distributing meals free of charge for children.
“Public health concerns are driving this decision to suspend our meal distributions for students,” district leaders said in a memo sent to parents Monday evening.
“U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams issued a recent warning that the pandemic is reaching a peak in this country and communities need to take extreme steps to self-quarantine. The public health concerns of putting numerous KCPS employees, students and families together is driving our decision-making process.”
Last week, the Tonganoxie and the Raytown school districts temporarily suspended their school lunch distribution programs after workers tested positive for the coronavirus.
Tonganoxie said then that its meal program would remain down for two weeks, but the district planned to work with churches and surrounding districts to continue feeding students. Officials at the district did not respond to calls from The Star on Monday.
Most school districts in the area launched their grab-and-go food pickup programs when coronavirus closed schools.
Parents could drive up and be handed bagged breakfasts and lunches for their children at designated times Monday through Friday. In some cases, students themselves were showing up on bikes, and food service workers loaded their backpacks with free meals.
Last week, KCPS gave Raytown about 6,000 meals while the operation was down. Raytown resumed its program this week.
Across the country, some 22 million students get free or discounted lunch during the school year. For many, those meals are the only food they get. When schools were closed, food service directors worried that some students might go hungry,
They also worried about the safety of their own workers, said Diane Pratt-Heavner, a spokeswoman with the School Nutrition Association, a nonprofit that works with more than 55,000 school food providers. Food service workers, who are trained in food preparation and service, regularly wear the appropriate safety gear, including gloves and hairnets. Now they also are following the guidance of local and national public health experts on social distancing. But the job they agreed to was not supposed to be life-threatening.
She said that several districts around the country, including in Houston, Memphis, Louisiana and West Virginia, also have suspended meal distribution efforts after workers either tested positive or were exposed to coronavirus.
In St. Louis County, a Ferguson-Florissant School District bus driver who had been helping to deliver food to students, died of COVID-19 over the weekend. A second bus driver for the district died of an unrelated illness, but the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported that the driver did have symptoms of COVID-19. And a district staff worker tested positive for the disease. Ferguson-Florissant suspended its food distribution for this week.
Districts around the country are altering their distribution programs, trying to make them safer for workers and families. Pratt-Heavner said some have cut back their distribution dates, times or locations, or changed how they hand out food.
“We are hearing that some workers ask parents to pop the trunk and they just set the meals in the trunk rather than have them roll down the window.” Other districts, she said, are packaging a week’s worth of meals for each pickup to limit contact.
This week, all North Kansas City School District food distribution workers are now asked to wear cloth masks, bandannas or scarves over their mouth and nose. And next week, the district will expand its pickup sites from four to 12 to encourage social distancing.
Kansas City school officials said they will continue to monitor the situation and will update plans based on guidance from public health authorities.
“We intend to relaunch student meal distributions as soon as it is safe to do so,” Weikal said.
