Special delivery
Transportation Director Karen Sniegowski helps bus driver Jerry Blight load his bus with meals for students. Photo by Barb Mosher
By Barb Mosher, Contributing Writer
Karen Sniegowski understands the heart of a school bus driver. She delivered Elk Rapids students from their homes to school and back for 27 years before taking the helm of the district’s transportation department a year ago. So, when drivers were side-lined last spring due to the Coronavirus-necessitated in-person learning shutdown, her own heart sank, too.
“Drivers love to drive, and they love the kids they drive,” Sniegowski said. “And I kept thinking about kids who lost contact with the schools. That bothered me, too.”
She considered options for maintaining a degree of connection between the drivers and their riders, including using buses to deliver school breakfasts and lunches. But the pandemic was a brand-new wrinkle, and hopes were high that the shutdown would be short-lived; surely things would be back to normal soon, so Sniegowski tabled her ideas.
While the school year ended with students still learning from home, the virus scenario was encouraging enough by the fall to allow classrooms to reopen on schedule September 8. When the region slid back to Phase 4 of Michigan’s Safe Start Plan in early November, the district sent students home for a week before returning to in-person instruction. But on November 18, the doors were shuttered once again for a three-week “pause” ordered by the Michigan Department of Health and Human Service.
For Sniegowski, it was time to finally hatch a plan for meal delivery. Keeping buses on the road would contribute to their maintenance, allow drivers to continue earning paychecks, provide them with a physical, mental, and emotional outlet, and positively impact students and their families. She talked to district Superintendent Julie Brown who was also eager to keep the drivers onboard.
“When you go into shutdown, there are a lot of people who do meaningful work who still need to be employed,” Brown said. “We wanted that work to continue and keep them connected to our kids. And we wanted to show the kids we’re still here and we care.”
Sniegowski consulted with Rob Payne, district food service director, who had just filled school freezers with menu items ordered prior to the announcement of the three-week “pause.” He and his staff were well-versed in preparing bagged breakfasts and lunches that had been offered for on-site pick-up during previous shutdowns, and they were happy to work with the drivers to ensure students’ continued access to safe and nutritious food. Drivers then called every family on their regular routes to survey the need; the majority welcomed the service.
“These are trying times, and it’s incorrect to assume that everyone’s cupboard is full,” Payne said. “People’s jobs and incomes have been impacted in various ways, and we can provide a valuable service for the children of the district.”
Full funding from the U.S. Department of Agriculture through the end of the 2020-2021 school year assures the meals are available to all students at no cost to families or the district. And with a transportation budget designed around eight full routes twice every school day, the four-route twice-a-week meal delivery program is economically judicious.
“I don’t know how you quantify how much it’s worth for the drivers to see those kids, and for the kids to know we’re here” Brown said. “We’re still saving money but doing really good things for families.”
And so, on a recent cold and still darkish early morning, drivers and food service staff were working together to load several days’ worth of bagged breakfasts and lunches along with crates of single-serving milk cartons into the back ends of school buses. Jerry Blight, who’s been driving bus for Elk Rapids since 2016, says he’d happily deliver meals to school kids whether or not he was paid for it.
“It’s just a warm feeling when you see the kids’ reactions,” he explained. “It’s a little bit of school brought to their house, and many of these families really depend on it. It’s nice to be able to still be a part of their lives in this way.”
Lisa Volkers, new to the transportation department this year, agrees. “The bus driver is the first and last school person they see on a normal school day,” she said. “You build that friendship and become a confidante. So you miss that, and you wonder and hope they’re ok. Seeing them a couple of times a week now, it’s nice to see their waves and smiles and to connect with them.”
Brown says that although food service staff and bus drivers are undervalued in many districts, she admires them as “incredibly important” links in the overall school-family-community network.
“People don’t understand that,” she said. “They set the stage for how the kids feel for the whole day. Working together to get out to those kids and bring them meals shows them school has not gone away. They’ll be coming back to school, but we’re keeping an eye on them in the meantime.”
For Blight, making special deliveries helps fill the void until in-person learning and regular bus routes resume. “As long as we’re still active with the kids like we are, dropping off meals, that’s great,” he said. “But I’d much rather be driving a bus with kids on it.”
Karen Sniegowski understands the heart of a school bus driver. She delivered Elk Rapids students from their homes to school and back for 27 years before taking the helm of the district’s transportation department a year ago. So, when drivers were side-lined last spring due to the Coronavirus-necessitated in-person learning shutdown, her own heart sank, too.
“Drivers love to drive, and they love the kids they drive,” Sniegowski said. “And I kept thinking about kids who lost contact with the schools. That bothered me, too.”
She considered options for maintaining a degree of connection between the drivers and their riders, including using buses to deliver school breakfasts and lunches. But the pandemic was a brand-new wrinkle, and hopes were high that the shutdown would be short-lived; surely things would be back to normal soon, so Sniegowski tabled her ideas.
While the school year ended with students still learning from home, the virus scenario was encouraging enough by the fall to allow classrooms to reopen on schedule September 8. When the region slid back to Phase 4 of Michigan’s Safe Start Plan in early November, the district sent students home for a week before returning to in-person instruction. But on November 18, the doors were shuttered once again for a three-week “pause” ordered by the Michigan Department of Health and Human Service.
For Sniegowski, it was time to finally hatch a plan for meal delivery. Keeping buses on the road would contribute to their maintenance, allow drivers to continue earning paychecks, provide them with a physical, mental, and emotional outlet, and positively impact students and their families. She talked to district Superintendent Julie Brown who was also eager to keep the drivers onboard.
“When you go into shutdown, there are a lot of people who do meaningful work who still need to be employed,” Brown said. “We wanted that work to continue and keep them connected to our kids. And we wanted to show the kids we’re still here and we care.”
Sniegowski consulted with Rob Payne, district food service director, who had just filled school freezers with menu items ordered prior to the announcement of the three-week “pause.” He and his staff were well-versed in preparing bagged breakfasts and lunches that had been offered for on-site pick-up during previous shutdowns, and they were happy to work with the drivers to ensure students’ continued access to safe and nutritious food. Drivers then called every family on their regular routes to survey the need; the majority welcomed the service.
“These are trying times, and it’s incorrect to assume that everyone’s cupboard is full,” Payne said. “People’s jobs and incomes have been impacted in various ways, and we can provide a valuable service for the children of the district.”
Full funding from the U.S. Department of Agriculture through the end of the 2020-2021 school year assures the meals are available to all students at no cost to families or the district. And with a transportation budget designed around eight full routes twice every school day, the four-route twice-a-week meal delivery program is economically judicious.
“I don’t know how you quantify how much it’s worth for the drivers to see those kids, and for the kids to know we’re here” Brown said. “We’re still saving money but doing really good things for families.”
And so, on a recent cold and still darkish early morning, drivers and food service staff were working together to load several days’ worth of bagged breakfasts and lunches along with crates of single-serving milk cartons into the back ends of school buses. Jerry Blight, who’s been driving bus for Elk Rapids since 2016, says he’d happily deliver meals to school kids whether or not he was paid for it.
“It’s just a warm feeling when you see the kids’ reactions,” he explained. “It’s a little bit of school brought to their house, and many of these families really depend on it. It’s nice to be able to still be a part of their lives in this way.”
Lisa Volkers, new to the transportation department this year, agrees. “The bus driver is the first and last school person they see on a normal school day,” she said. “You build that friendship and become a confidante. So you miss that, and you wonder and hope they’re ok. Seeing them a couple of times a week now, it’s nice to see their waves and smiles and to connect with them.”
Brown says that although food service staff and bus drivers are undervalued in many districts, she admires them as “incredibly important” links in the overall school-family-community network.
“People don’t understand that,” she said. “They set the stage for how the kids feel for the whole day. Working together to get out to those kids and bring them meals shows them school has not gone away. They’ll be coming back to school, but we’re keeping an eye on them in the meantime.”
For Blight, making special deliveries helps fill the void until in-person learning and regular bus routes resume. “As long as we’re still active with the kids like we are, dropping off meals, that’s great,” he said. “But I’d much rather be driving a bus with kids on it.”
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