Chester Co. High School bus delivers food, plans to expand duties

HENDERSON, Tenn. — It doesn’t look like much now, but school officials want this Chester County High School bus to bring the classroom to students.

“We wanted to create a mobile classroom, where we could take our bus to different parts of the community,” said Ricky Catlett, Principal of Chester County High School.

WBBJ 7 Eyewitness News caught a ride with Catlett and Transportation Supervisor Britt Eads as they delivered food to students around Henderson.

The school held their food distribution in the front parking lot on Friday, but they had some families who couldn’t make it. To reach them, they use the Eagle One bus.

“We take care of their full week, but we just give out two days a week,” Catlett said.

Catlett added that this is only phase one of the bus. The school wants to fit Eagle One with internet capability, school materials and more.

“Parts in our county don’t have internet access, so we wanted to get a mobile hot spot so that we could take this bus out to them and let them be able to use the internet,” Catlett said.

They’ve already used the bus to help student with scholarships forms.

“We took it to different parts of the county and set up at different times, so students could come to us and pick up their scholarship forms. They could also drop off their scholarship forms, so they wouldn’t miss the deadline,” Catlett said.

The bus could also later be used for more general purposes.

“If we needed to do a reading program, study skills for ACT tests, if we wanted to do giveaways, etc.” Catlett said.

Unfortunately, the school has not received a grant yet, but they say people are helping provide materials like tables and generators. This means they are moving ahead with their plans.

“Our teachers got involved with it, as well as our staff here, and our community has been really supportive of it too, so we’re excited,” Catlett said.