The Inter-Mountain photo by Edgar Kelley Former Randolph County School bus driver and transportation director Randy Long, above left, was among a large group of residents asking the Board of Education not to close Pickens K-12 School this week.

ELKINS — A group of residents protesting the proposed closing of the Pickens school have invited Randolph County Board of Education members to experience the lengthy school bus ride students will have to endure if the closure plan is approved.

Two retired school bus drivers and a former coal mine inspector were among a handful of citizens who spoke to the Randolph County Board of Education and Superintendent of Schools Dr. Shawn Dilly Wednesday night during the BOE’s regular meeting.

The trio represented a large group of residents from Pickens at the meeting to speak out against a proposal that would close the Pickens K-12 School and send students to Mill Creek to attend George Ward Elementary and Tygarts Valley Middle/High School.

Keith Mathews, who was a bus driver for the county for 32 1/2 years before his retirement, was the first to speak during the public comment section of the meeting. Mathews said students should never have to spend as much time on a school bus as they will if the closure happens. 

“Regulations recommend that elementary students shouldn’t be on a bus for more than 45 minutes,” Mathews said. “For high school and middle school students, it is increased to no more than one hour. If Pickens closes and the kids are bused to Mill Creek, most of them are going to have to get out of bed and start getting ready for school at 4:30 a.m.”

Randy Long, another retired bus driver of 23 years, who also once served as the county’s transportation director, was next to speak, and was later followed by Kevin Betler, a former mine inspector. Both Long and Betler provided a powerpoint presentation while speaking. 

“Transportation has always been my life and I enjoy what I do,” said Long, who currently serves as a substitute bus driver in the county. “I got concerned when I heard that Pickens was going to close and that’s why I came here tonight. I sat down one afternoon and I began to work out a bus schedule for those students to come to Mill Creek.

“There’s a lot that goes into doing schedules and I did them for a long time for all the bus runs in the county. The schedule I put together is very accurate, exactly to the minute. I ran this schedule with a truck equivalent to a school bus. I did the stops, I took down the accumulated mileage.”

Long said the first stops during the morning run for students going from Pickens to Mill Creek will be at 5:33 a.m. for elementary students and 5:20 a.m. for high school and middle school students.

“Keep in mind I did this schedule and test on a perfect day, no snow, no ice and no fog,” Long said. “In bad weather a driver is going to leave 10 to 15 minutes earlier… The accumulated drive time on the bus for this trip was 1 hour and 50 minutes for high school students. For elementary students it was 102 minutes…

“The bus from beginning to end is going to run 45 3/4 of a mile per run… The last student will be stepping off the bus in the evening at 4:30 p.m. and the last elementary student will be at 4:17 p.m… A lot of you have been to Pickens for graduation, but you haven’t been there in the winter and it’s a whole different world. It can be a very nasty place… In the winter time there is going to be a lot of extra time added on.”

Long added that there are spots in the Pickens area that don’t have cell phone service or radio reception.

“There are places over there where there is no radio service,” Long said. “There are some places over there where you can talk well, but somewhere you cannot talk at all… The speed on the run I conducted was five miles per hour under the speed limit, which is required for school buses.”

Before Betler spoke to the board, Daniel Lehmann, who has had five children pass through Pickens School, provided a map in powerpoint to the BOE and those in attendance. The map showed some of the terrain the bus route to Mill Creek would have, including the crossing of four steep mountains. 

Betler, a resident of Helvetia and a Pickens alumnus, talked about his background and questioned if transporting the students from Pickens to Mill Creek was against West Virginia state code.

“My background is in coal mining and I was an underground coal mine inspector for the state of West Virginia, so I’d like to talk a little bit about West Virginia code,” said Betler. “I enforced West Virginia code, administrative rules and regulations, and inspected West Virginia coal mines for health and safety issues. I want to highlight a few sections of West Virginia code 18-2E-5D where it states the duration for students to be on a bus…

“It says the county may not create a new bus route for transportation of students in any grade levels pre-k through 5 to and from any school including in school closures, consolidation, or new construction projects after July 1, 2008, which exceeds more than 15 minutes of the recommended duration of the school bus transportation time frame for elementary students…

“In essence, that’s one hour. The county can’t create one and the state board can’t allow one. You can see our time for elementary students, at minimum, is one hour and 42 minutes. For high school, it’s one hour and 55 minutes.”

The powerpoint presentations were prepared by the Pickens Local School Improvement Council, who also received approval from the administration for a bus ride to take place on the expected school bus route on Sunday at 1 p.m.

“This field trip on Sunday has been approved with a county school bus and has been paid for by donations,” Betler said. “I ask all of you (BOE members) to come out and ride that bus on Sunday, and when you make your vote, you will know what you are voting on.”