WHAT THE...?

School Bus Driver Accused of Paying Kids $5 in Exchange for Mouth Swabs

“Nothing about this makes sense to me as a normal protocol,” Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools board member Rhonda Cheek said.

A North Carolina school bus driver has been suspended for allegedly paying kids $5 in exchange for saliva swabs from their mouthes. Three families initially came forward to local network WSOC-TV on Monday with the extremely bizarre allegations. Now the number of families has risen to 12 and Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools officials are trying to track down every child on the driver’s routes, WSOC-TV reports. The driver asked kids for personal information along with a mouth swab, calling it a COVID test, even though that’s not how COVID tests are done. “Nothing about this makes sense to me as a normal protocol. To me, it doesn’t sound like COVID-19 tests,” school board member Rhonda Cheek said.