Some Bluffton Elementary students lose bus service

About 140 Bluffton Elementary School students who live within a mile and half of the school and had been able to ride the bus will have to walk, bike or get a another ride next year, a Beaufort County School District official announced at Tuesday's Board of Education meeting.

Bus service is paid for by the state. School districts, however, get fined for busing children who live in such close proximity to their schools.

Pathways connecting area neighborhoods to the school were completed over the winter. District CFO Phyllis White said officials no longer could justify paying the fines for busing those students to class.

White said the district paid about $79,000 in state fines districtwide in the last year and would have to pay roughly $1,900 next year to continue offering service to the Bluffton Elementary students. It also would have to come up with $90,000 to lease three buses to carry the 140 or so students.

District spokesman John Williams said parents had been notified of the change through newsletters throughout the year and would receive a formal letter sometime this month.

He said some parents probably would be upset by the change. But Williams said it would be unfair to keep busing in the Bluffton students while children near many other schools in the county have to walk, bike or find another ride.

There were no criticisms of the change made during a public comment session at the beginning of the board meeting.

White said there would be crossing guards when school starts to shepherd students walking or biking from subdivisions on the western side of Buckwalter Parkway across the road.