HORRY COUNTY, SC (WBTW) – A little more than a year ago the South Carolina Supreme Court ruled the state does not give children in poor, rural districts a chance to succeed.
One of the things the court ruled the state needs to address is transportation which has prompted state leaders to evaluate school bus routes.
Section 59-67-105 of the South Carolina Code of Laws Governing Public School Bus Transportation states:
“A student may not ride continuously on a state-owned school bus for more than ninety minutes. With the approval of the Department of Education, the ninety-minute maximum ride time may be exceeded when the area’s geography requires longer than average highway travel because of a circuitous or meandering road network, extremely low population density, or waterway barriers. The ninety-minute maximum ride time may be exceeded when attendance zones are multi-district or countywide.”
A state report revealed of the nearly 1,100 routes in Horry County, 43 are over the legal limit, but district transportation leaders say those numbers are misleading.
WEB EXTRA: View state report that documents bus ride routes and times
“What they’re referring to is both the morning and afternoon route but technically that’s half of that as far as the routes go,” HCS Director of Transportation Jim Wright said.
Some of the other routes longer than 90 minutes are at specialized schools like TLC or AAST.
“These are all district-wide programs. The kids can come from anywhere in Horry County which as you know almost 1140 square miles to that one particular facility,” Wright said.
Melissa Shenk has two students enrolled in Horry County schools. Her daughter is in the Loris High School Attendance Zone but she’s enrolled her in the Academy for Arts Science and Technology.
“She’s up every morning at 5:00, she gets on the bus at 6:20 and then she’s on the bus from 6:20 until 8:00 when she gets to school,” Shenk said.
That makes for a much longer bus ride than the one to her home school but one her daughter says is worth it.
“I want to continue doing this because it’s much more of a push and it’s more challenging because I can get up and go to school and come home and learn something every day,” Alyssa Shenk said.
However, for nearly 50 Carolina Forest High School Students, their morning and afternoon bus routes exceed the legal limit. In fact, News13 rode that route and found some students don’t get home from school until after 5:00pm.
“That one goes all the up to Highway 90 back to Carolina Forest High School. Most of that time is sitting in traffic on Highway 501. It’s just a very long route to get there,” Wright said.
It’s an issue more buses could help with but Horry County leaders say a state law makes that nearly impossible. That’s because the district transports kids who live within a mile and a half of their school and the state board of education says it has no obligation to help.
“If I try to apply for an additional state bus, those kids would have to come off before I’d be able to get one from the state. So they’re not eligible to ride under the state rules, however Horry County provides that transportation for all students to ride,” Wright said.
Horry County and State leaders are evaluating all routes longer than 90 minutes to see if moving students to other buses would help for the next school year.
