Students just love getting lunch delivered to school. But Wake is cracking down.
Updated Jan. 7, 2020.
Students in North Carolina’s largest school district are increasingly turning to food delivery services such as Uber Eats and Grubhub to get their meals on campus instead of eating school lunches.
The presence of these delivery people is raising safety and disruption concerns, causing some schools across the nation to ban them from campus. In Wake County, a new policy received final approval on Jan. 7 that will set rules on how delivery people can come on campus and meet with students.
“Anytime you have unidentified visitors on campus there’s a potential risk,” school board member Chris Heagarty said in an interview. “We just want to take a look at the policy and see what are the best practices.”
Wake is far from alone in these concerns.
Citing security and nuisance concerns, school districts from California to Delaware are cracking down on the delivery services, Stateline reported in June.
But a new policy likely won’t cause some Wake students to change their opinion that using a smartphone app to get a fast-food delivery at school is better than what they’ll find in the cafeteria.
Students say school food is gross
“I tried the food at school once and it was really gross so I started ordering or bringing my own food, just like small snacks,” said Kriselle Kolek, 17, a senior at Leesville Road High School in Raleigh. “If that didn’t fill me up I’d order from Bojangles’ or McDonald’s.”
Throughout the Wake County school system, high school seniors and in some cases juniors are allowed to go off campus to get lunch. It’s done mainly because cafeterias can’t accommodate all the students if they stayed on campus.
The underclassmen though don’t want to be left out, so the food delivery apps have been an option.
Kian Kolek, 17, a sophomore at Leesville, said he’s had McChicken sandwiches from McDonald’s and Cajun filet sandwiches from Bojangles’ delivered to the school.
“The food on campus is terrible,” Kian Kolek said. “It’s dry, it’s crusty, it’s disgusting. ... It’s nasty and the food that they bring is better.”
Angie Scioli, a social studies teacher at Leesville, said it’s not uncommon while she’s on lunch duty to see a dozen adults on campus holding delivery bags. For instance, Scioli saw a female student standing next to the car of a large male delivery person with his back seat open. Scioli said it would have only taken three seconds for the driver to push the student inside and drive away.
“It is clear students feel a false sense of security about the safety and trackability of these transactions and it is our job to protect them from their own poor judgment,” Scioli said in a letter she wrote to Heagarty on behalf of the school.
New rules for food deliveries on campus
The school board is in the process of revising its policy on school visitors. Heagarty cited the concerns raised by Scioli to get some additional wording added to the policy.
Under the new policy, delivery people must report directly to the front office or other area chosen by the principal. If the delivery person gets permission to access another part of the campus, school staff must accompany the visitor at all times.
Heagarty said the new policy should provide uniform rules for all the schools to use.
“The biggest concern that we have is there is no uniform policy or uniform practices,” Heagarty said. “If you were in one of these businesses, policies and practices could vary from school to school. It’s hard for parents and students to understand what is permitted when it can vary from one school to another.”
Scioli said she appreciates that the school board is responding to the concerns raised in the letter. But she said the new policy will still add burdens on short-staffed school office staff who will have to deal with the delivery people.
Scioli wants the food delivery companies to voluntarily stop delivering to students on campus during the school day. She’s hoping that public attention about how disruptive their presence can be will cause the companies to stop to protect their image.
“They’re making money off of kids who are under 18 who are maybe not making the best decisions because their prefrontal cortex hasn’t developed yet,” Scioli said in an interview. “They’re creating burdens for the schools.”
Emails to GrubHub and Uber Eats from The News & Observer requesting comment were not returned.
If the companies don’t voluntarily stop, Scioli said she hopes state lawmakers will act to ban the food deliveries. She’s spoken with her representative, Sen. Jay Chaudhuri, a Raleigh Democrat.
Chaudhuri said he’d have to research whether the issue is best handled by school districts or by lawmakers.
“Based on how other school districts have responded to the concerns around food deliveries and how disruptive they can be, it appears that school districts are taking the initial lead for putting in that initial oversight,” Chaudhuri said in an interview Wednesday. “That being said, there may be additional ways for the legislature to be involved.”
This story was originally published December 18, 2019 at 12:55 PM.
