ASHEBORO — The Randolph County Schools Board of Education has repealed a prior decision to implement a new bus plan.
At a special called meeting Monday, the board repealed a decision made March 16 that would have changed the Archdale, Trinity and Wheatmore and the Randleman areas to a new busing system starting in 2026-27.
The decision would have been a pilot for the entire school system to attempt to improve the overall efficiency rating for the district.
RCSS has 140 buses running, with route times eclipsing two hours. Because of this, the district’s state efficiency rating was just 87.90%, resulting in a withholding of around $740,000 in state transportation funding.
The new approach would reduce the fleet, but improve route times and thereby DPI efficiency ratings.
Drivers would also be full-time employees supervised by the district’s Transportation Department and the projected savings from the change were projected to be north of $269,000.
“The state knows what it costs to fund our transportation system and they are literally sitting on money in Raleigh,” RCSS superintendent Stephen Gainey said at the March 16 meeting. “They’re not going to give it to us until we take this final step because there’s nothing else we can do. In my opinion, we’re as efficient as we can be without starting a new route.”
However, the board decided to go back on that decision due to it asking more of teachers to both arrive earlier and stay later because of changes in drop-off/pick-up times as well as complaints from parents.
The tiered approach would have changed the start time for middle school to 7:20 a.m. with students being dropped off at 7 a.m. and the start time for elementary schools to 8:20 a.m. with drop off at 8 a.m.
Schools would then end at 2:25 p.m. for middle schools and 3:35 p.m. for elementary schools.
“The transportation department did exactly what they were asked to do and did a great job,” said board chair Gary Cook. “With that being said, the more I thought about it and slept on it, I didn’t realize that the teachers for elementary school kids, this is going to be more of a hardship on them.”
Cook also pointed to the fact that those time changes would impact students who participate in after-school activities and stated that the projected savings from the improved efficiency ratings were just “not worth it.”
“The fact that we can have full-time bus drivers and not have to worry about subs, pulling TAs out, not having to worry about all these other things and we’ll have kids on buses for a shorter amount of time,” said board member Shannon Whitaker. “The tiered bus schedule makes sense and I love what it offers. But I still just feel like there’s a lot of questions for me and I don’t know if it’s 100% doable at the end of the day.”
The Randolph County Schools Board of Education will next meet April 20.
