Hours on the bus await some students

By Anna B. Mitchell  

MARCH 8, 2010 9:25 a.m. (10)

Savita Nair said she’d assumed her third-grader would be riding a bus when the girl was accepted to Stone Academy six and a half years ago.

“I came to hear about her bus number,” said Nair, who grew up riding the bus to school in New York State. “I went and it was, ‘Oh no, your kids wouldn’t take the bus.’ I was taken aback.”

Nair said she would find out the status quo at Stone – where only about six magnet students take the bus – was for parents to drive their children to school. She has since learned as her three children have enrolled at the Sterling School and Southside High that children who take advantage of the district’s various choice programs countywide rarely take the bus. Her own children would have to be in their Travelers Rest driveway by 6 a.m. to catch a bus into town.

The bottom line for parents contacted by the Journal: the buses come way too early and the rides are way too long.

Of the school district’s nearly 70,000 students, just under 2,500 are enrolled as magnet-school students. Of those, about 400 opt to take a school bus – fewer than one in six.

School board member Crystal Ball O’Connor has questioned whether an undesirable bus system, one that attracts only desperate people, is limiting access to programs designed to help children with a keen interest or ability in certain areas.

“Who will have fun taking advantage of rigorous program like the Southside IB program if three or four hours are spent on the bus?” O’Connor said. “When are they going to do their homework?”

Children who ride on the district’s 11 magnet-school buses – a system whose routes cover 800 square miles – face daily ride times of between two hours 45 minutes and, for those who live in the county’s extreme northern or southern areas, more than four hours, district officials said.

That is, magnet-school children whose school day is six and a half hours long see their day extended with transportation to up to 10 and a half hours or longer. The earliest pickup times are 5:45 a.m., and the last buses drop off students at 6:15 p.m. with routes tweaked as much as possible to minimize an individual child’s time on the bus.

“We do not track the ride time for each individual student, but the elementary child gets the shorter time in the a.m. and the longest in the p.m. from the transfer point,” said Oby Lyles, the district’s spokesman.

Lyles said the magnet-school program has largely done what it is supposed to do – that is, attract suburban families to dying, inner-city schools. The South Carolina Department of Education provides no money for magnet-school transportation, he said, and the district to date hasn’t seen a way to expand its 11-bus magnet fleet.

Norm Seidel, the district’s transportation director, said more buses could reduce ride times – about 16 more magnet buses. Bus travel for rural children who enroll at their nearest school is itself up to 3 and a half hours.

The magnet busing system works by sending a bus to a region of the county to pick up all the children there. The 11 magnet buses then converge at one of two hubs in the city of Greenville at 7:30 a.m. Children get off their buses there and climb on a different one bound for their particular school.

The process is repeated in reverse in the afternoon, with buses leaving the hub at 4 p.m. bound for student homes.

O’Connor voiced her objection to the magnet-bus system when a change of the school system’s bell schedule shifted the school day for middle- and high-schoolers 15 minutes later in the afternoon. This means buses won’t leave the magnet hub until 4:!5 p.m. – an additional 15-minute wait for elementary school kids.

If something goes wrong – a bus breaks down or a driver calls in sick – the waits can be longer.

PTA organizations have responded to the bus problems by organizing carpools, several parents and school officials said.

Kelly McSharry said she never considered having her kids – two of whom are in magnet programs – take the bus. Her daughter is at Stone, her middle son is at League Academy, and her oldest boy is at Wade Hampton High. She has the kids loaded in the car by 7:15 a.m. and is home 45 minutes later. She typically picks them up in the afternoon as well.

“I’ve heard stories where elementary students don’t get home until 4 or 4:30,” McSharry said. “My youngest has to be at swim practice at 3:45, so I’ve got to get her. The bus would kill her chances to do after-school activities.”

Nair, whose department head at Furman agreed never to give her 8 a.m. classes, said she wonders about families where both parents work full time or don’t have flexible bosses.

She met recently with a group of Eastside parents considering the Southside High International Baccaleareate program, and one idea floated was hiring a private bus service, she said. She’s also met several parents who have considered pulling their children from magnet programs because of the transportation strain.

“Then it’s this language of, ‘You don’t really care about your child,’” Nair said. “It’s crazy. It shouldn’t have to be a litmus test of how far you are willing to drive your child. It increases the divide between those with access to educational opportunities and those who do not.”