CONWAY, SC (WBTW) – South Carolina’s Department of Education is working to replace old school buses in the state, and wants to add new buses to Horry County’s fleet, and other growing districts.
South Carolina Schools Superintendent Molly Spearman submitted a request for next fiscal year asking for additional funding to cycle out old buses and purchase new ones.
Horry County Schools use 316 state-owned buses to transport their students to and from school.
Sixty three of those buses are older than 1995. However, Horry County says the state is slowly working to change that.
“It’s somewhat of an older fleet of the state-owned buses, however, they’ve started an alternative fuel program to replace some of those older buses in the fleet,” Lisa Bourcier, spokesperson for the Horry County Schools, said.
Thanks to the program, Horry County received 21 propane-fueled replacement buses at the beginning of this school year.
The district is also working to potentially replace some of their county-owned bus fleet too.
“Several years ago we did have to add some additional buses to the Carolina Forest area to assist with population growth, but we’re looking at potentially for next fiscal year to replace six of those and add some newer buses to that particular area,” Bourcier said.
Horry County Schools has around 50 school buses it bought on its own, in addition to the state’s buses.
The district’s director of transportation is asking for $500,000 to replace the six buses used in Carolina Forest for next fiscal year.
While there aren’t any proposals from the district to add to their bus fleet to accommodate the growth in the county, it says it will continue to serve the growing number of students at their schools.
“Growth in general impacts all of your operations, especially because we have added additional schools to the county, and we’re really starting to see those growth populations happen not only in Carolina Forest area, but in Socastee and St. James, so we’re making sure we have adequate fleet, and they are serviced well. Starting your day off right is very important to schools, so making sure the children are getting to school on time is extremely important not only for scheduling but for maintainance as well,” Bourcier said.
