Submitted photo Randolph County Schools Superintendent Dr. Shawn Dilly and Randolph County Board of Education member Ed Daniels took part in a bus trip from Mill Creek to Pickens on Sunday. The Pickens Local School Improvement Council sponsored the trip to show what the ride would be like for students if the Pickens K-12 School closes.

MILL CREEK — The Randolph County Superintendent of Schools and a Board of Education member took part in a two-hour bus trip intended to simulate what students will experience if Pickens K-12 School closes.

The Pickens Local School Improvement Council funded the school bus trip from Mill Creek to Pickens on Sunday, following the “return home from school” route students will be driven if the school closure plan is approved.

At the most recent BOE meeting, representatives from the PLSIC invited Superintendent Dr. Shawn Dilly and all of the Board of Education members to join them on the bus ride, which was approved by the county as a field trip and was completely funded by donations.

Jonathan Lacocque, a member of the PLSIC who has two daughters who attend Pickens K-12, was among a host of citizens who made the bus trip and confirmed that Dilly and BOE member Ed Daniels also made the trek.

“(They) both came on the bus along with a mix of 12 PLSIC and community members from the Pickens, Helvetia and Czar areas,” Lacocque told The Inter-Mountain. “We got on the bus (at Tygarts Valley Middle/High School) right around 1 p.m. and didn’t arrive at (Pickens) until almost two hours later. And that was with making all the stops that the bus would make for students.”

Lacocque said communication between community members and Dilly and Daniels during the bus ride was held to a minimum.

“I didn’t get to speak with either one (Dilly or Daniels) very much and I don’t think there was much interaction between them and the community members on the bus,” Lacocque noted. “I have to say it was a long bus ride and there was some acknowledgement made, either through body language or something, that it’s a long ride and not comfortable.”

Lacocque said that he, some members of the PLSIC, and several of the community residents became a little queasy during the bus ride.

“After almost an hour on the bus, you get on some roads that are not all paved,” he said. “So you are kind of bouncing around a little bit on gravel and dirt roads to reach where some of those kids would be in the further hollers. I was at the back of the bus and actually sitting where my kids sat just to see what it was like.”

Lacocque said the main school bus driver for Pickens drove the bus during Sunday’s trip, and that he got a sense from Dilly and Daniels that they now appreciate the distance students will have to travel.

“It was a long trip, that’s for sure,” he said. “I think the superintendent and Mr. Daniels were able to see just how long of a trip this is going to be for our students if the school closes.

“I appreciated the fact that they were willing to join us on the trip, because it’s important for them to have a perspective of what that trip is actually like.”

Randy Long, who is a former transportation director for Randolph County Schools, attended the BOE’s most recent meeting and presented some numbers after driving the school bus route, complete with all the stops that would be made for students.

Long, who did the trip on a clear sunny day, found that the first stop for elementary school students would be at 5:33 a.m. in the morning. The first high school and middle school students would be picked up at 5:20 a.m. 

Kevin Betler, a resident of Helvetia and a Pickens alumnus, also attended the last BOE meeting and questioned whether or not the trips for students were against state code. Betler said he believed that the bus times for all the students exceeded state code.

Long’s findings dealt with accumulated drive times on the bus. For middle school and high school students, the drive would be 1 hour and 50 minutes. For elementary students, it would be 1 hour and 42 minutes, Long said. 

Public hearings and the votes on whether to close the schools will take place in December.

The next Randolph County Board of Education meeting will be Tuesday at 5:30 p.m.