BERKELEY COUNTY, SC — Not even a full week since students have been back to school and complaints to the Berkeley County School District have been rolling in about the school bus system.
A cell phone video that’s been shared via social media shows students on a crowded bus standing and sitting in a bus aisle.
“My child is my responsibility. I don’t want her or any child to have to stand up on the bus. It’s just not safe,” said Maurica Shanell, who sent out her daughter’s video publicly.
Other complaints include buses that are late for pickup or drop off. Moncks Corner woman Kathleen McCarroll has four children enrolled at BCSD schools. She says her two high schoolers she has driven to school because she doesn’t want them to stand on the bus. Then, on the second day of school she says she waited at the bus stop for her intermediate school student to return home, for an hour! She says she eventually went to the school for pickup.
“I called transportation and no one answers the phone or calls back,” McCarroll said. “I’ve been dealing with this for years. It is ridiculous. It’s not only in the beginning of the year. I have to figure out how to get to my other kids when it shows up late.”
District officials welcome anyone to call, message, or reach out via social media to let them know their concerns, but they are asking parents to be patient.
“The first week of school, it is always trying because you send a bus out thinking you’re picking five kids up and seven get on the bus, then that happens two or three times, then you end up with a bus that is slightly over capacity,” said BCSD Director of Transportation Wes Fleming.
The State Department of Education allows buses to run at over capacity for the first few days of school as school districts add busses, routes, or split routes, Fleming says. He says reason being is it is safer to have children on the bus than waiting at a bus stop. “Our ridership really doesn’t settle down until the second week, the ten day mark.”
The school district has currently pinpointed areas of growth where ridership projected numbers should have been higher, including: Clements Ferry Road, Sangaree, Nexton, and Tanner Plantation areas.
“We throw resources at these areas as we identify them to alleviate overcrowding,” Fleming says.
Additionally, Fleming says the district is expected to receive new school busses from the state in October, and currently the district is training a new batch of bus drivers who began in June/July and expects to train another group of in September/October. It is a process he says takes at least six weeks, up to nine.
Fleming say the school district has put about $1,000,000 more this year toward the transportation of students in Berkeley County, for new drivers, assistants, and competitive salaries for drivers. He says the district would like to have 194 drivers, but it is currently about 20 drivers short. BCSD is taking bus driver applications online.
As for the cell phone video showing the overcrowding on that particular bus route in the district Fleming said this in response: “We projected one bus was needed for that route, turns out we needed two. That was fixed immediately,” he said. “It looks more than capacity than it truly is. I know the driver of the bus told the kids to sit on the corner of the seats and they chose not to.” He says the capacity of that bus was 66, and there were 66 on board, but there were some bigger middle school students on board.
For problems to be addressed, Fleming urges parents to be in touch with their concerns. For transportation information or phone numbers visit the district’s homepage. “If they have issues, please call, please let us know. We try to fix them. If we can fix it we will,” said Fleming.
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