EDITED to include Fulton County Schools meals distribution changes.
Metro Atlanta school districts are rethinking how they distribute food to students and their families, citing the need to lower potential exposure as districts across the country discontinue programs as coronavirus cases continue to increase.
Monday, the DeKalb County School District will move from daily to thrice-weekly food handouts, giving out two meals a day and reducing the interactions with employees.
"The reduced schedule (limits) the chance of exposure of staff and community, and encourages everyone to shelter-in-place during non-meal distribution days," a district spokeswoman said. "People, in general, have fears associated with the COVID-19 pandemic. The decision to redesign our work model is to provide a rotation cycle that helps mitigate exposure while also trying to maintain service delivery to the students in our district."
Wednesday, Gov. Brian Kemp’s office announced 9,901 total coronavirus cases, up 8% from the previous day with more than 700 new cases. So far, 362 people in Georgia have died from the virus.
School districts began handing out food March 16, after deciding collectively the week before to cancel classes in buildings and shift learning online. Districts have said they are following guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and local departments of health as they navigate through continuing to provide meals to the region's more vulnerable: students who depend on meals they receive at school that sometimes are the only meals they get each day.
Large school districts in neighboring Alabama — including Birmingham — announced plans this week to end meal service for students, fearing it could contribute to the virus' spread. In St. Louis, several metropolitan-area school districts ended food distribution after bus drivers who had been helping deliver food there died of coronavirus complications or symptoms.
Kyle Waide, president and chief executive officer of the Atlanta Community Food Bank, said schools distributing food has been helpful to his nonprofit as it decided to go without volunteers — some 30,000 people assist the food bank each year — to avoid helping spread the virus. The group gives out an average of about 1.5 million pounds of food each week during normal times and has seen an uptick in distribution and new requests for assistance due to the coronavirus. Five metro Atlanta school districts currently distribute food for them weekly through school locations.
“The school distributions have given us the opportunity to reach more of the community in need,” he said.
According to Atlanta's Local Food Baseline Report from 2017, one in four metro Atlanta families are food insecure, which means they do not have access to affordable and nutritious food.
“We are committed to continuing to support school distributions for as long as the schools need us,” Waide said.
Beginning April 13, Atlanta Public Schools will no longer do daily food distribution, instead giving out five days of meals on Mondays. A bag of weekly groceries will still be given to families at several sites across the district through its partnership with the American Community Food Bank.
“APS employees and volunteers, including our bus drivers, are expected to wear protective gear such as masks and gloves, and practice social distancing at our food distribution sites and on any deliveries on the bus routes,” a spokesman said. “With each passing update from federal, state, and local elected and health officials, APS will continue to revise the model to promote public health and safety while also supporting our families during this crisis.”
Gwinnett County Schools officials said the district is continually assessing how it distributes food and has taken preventative steps to assure employee safety, including limiting the number of employees working in kitchens during meal prep, distributing masks and hand sanitizer and implementing processes for how staff interacts with the public.
“For the most part, the provision and distribution of meals has gone well and has meant so much to our students and families,” Gwinnett County Schools spokeswoman Sloan Roach said. “In addition, having these staff members provide this meaningful work has allowed the district a means of continuing to pay these employees whose work is tied directly to students attending school.”
Fulton County Schools Superintendent Mike Looney initially said this week that no changes were anticipated, but district officials continue to monitor COVID-19's spread. Friday afternoon, district officials announced that meal distribution would shift to once-weekly distribution with students receiving five meals.
A Cobb County Schools spokeswoman said the district anticipated potential issues with the coronavirus’ spread when deciding how food would be distributed.
“There’s already enough uncertainty surrounding COVID-19,” the spokeswoman said, adding the district so far has distributed 75,000 meals through a partnership with local nonprofit MUST Ministries. “Students need to know where, when and how food is distributed, and they don’t need those answers to change. We only considered options which wouldn’t require students and staff to be in an unsafe situation and which wouldn’t change for students.
“We won’t be making any changes to our food distribution system because we accounted for these issues up front.”
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