Transportation Department employees, (left to right) Kathy Ringo, Linda Kahle, Grace Burleigh, and Shena McDuffie, create bell covers for TUSD horn students.
Tucson Unified School District's transportation drivers are lending their talented skills to protect music students and staff during the pandemic. With the limited number of students physically attending school, bus drivers are available to assist other departments. TUSD Transportation Department has placed four of their employees on loan to TUSD's Fine and Performing Arts Department.
Bus drivers Linda "Kansas" Kahle, Shena McDuffie, Kathy Ringo, and bus monitor Grace Burleigh, are all skilled seamstresses who have already created over 6,700 colorful cloth face masks for district employees and students. Currently, they are lending their sartorial skills to making cloth bell covers for wind instruments.
Music educators across the nation are concerned with the germ-laden aerosols wind instruments produce. Bell covers act like face masks for brass and woodwind instruments, preventing the aerosols from spreading.
For the past week, the four transportation workers have been bringing their sewing machines into the Fine Arts workroom and setting up a production line to produce 1,100 bell covers of various sizes. From small ones for clarinets, to larger ones for trumpets and trombones, with the largest for tubas.
It is pleasure to have the work room, once again, bustling with energy. The collaborative spirit of Transportation lending a hand to Fine Arts is evidence of how TUSD teamwork is meeting the challenge of keeping our students and staff safe.