Preschoolers in rural West Virginia must commute three hours to and from school every day, leaving five-year-olds too exhausted to play.
Among them is Kolbie Hale, 5, who wakes up at 5 a.m. every weekday and leaves her home in Waiteville, West Virginia, at 5:45 a.m. every day, like clockwork.
Her parents take her to her grandmother Tammy Hale’s house, a few miles away. There she waits for the 6:25 a.m. bus to Mountain View Elementary and Middle School, the trip takes 90 minutes.
She arrives in time to say the Pledge of Allegiance with the rest of her classmates at 8:25 am. The Register Herald reported.
The school, located at Mountain View in Union, is just under 20 miles from Kolbie’s home in Waiteville, about 30 minutes by car if you take State Highwy 3 West, the most direct route.
But Kolbie is picked up first and then has to endure a very scenic route to pick up the other children, including a trek over Peters Mountain. And at the end of the day, she has to make the same journey in reverse after school ends at 3:25 p.m. — meaning she’s the last student to be dropped off around 5 p.m.
She has dinner with her parents Erin and Rick Hale, who themselves have just finished work, and is in bed by 7:30 PM to give her enough sleep before waking up again at 5 AM the next day.
An excruciatingly long day for a five-year-old that has created a mix of frustration and anxiety for many families, who say bus times have only increased over the years with the consolidation of several Monroe County schools.
Little five-year-old Kolbie Hale with backpack in tow steps off the school bus after a grueling ride to work
Mountain View Middle and Elementary School is located on Mountain View Drive
The blue line on the map shows the most direct route from Waiteville to the last stop in Union at Mountain View Elementary and Middle School
Kolbie’s grandmother, Tammy Hale, told The Register-Herald that the children’s needs had to come first.
She warned that an eleven- to twelve-hour day, five days a week, for ten months a year, for thirteen years, is not in the best interests of any child.
“These students need to do this somewhere between ages 10 and 13, depending on whether they start kindergarten,” Hale said.
“But for kindergarten through 10th grade, let’s say — so there’s 11 years of them doing this, 10 months out of the year, and that adds up to a lot of time.”
The unincorporated community of Waiteville is located in Monroe County, between Craig County, Virginia and Giles County, Virginia.
Until 2009, the area had a post office and, according to a 2020 census, had a population of approximately 12,000.
Longtime Monroe County resident Greg Hubbard recalled when he was a child the painful hour and twenty-minute bus ride he took to get to Union.
He thought things had changed, but when he moved his family from Gap Hills to Waiteville two years ago, he discovered they hadn’t.
His daughter Arabella, 15, suffered the same problems.
‘She took the bus from 3pm to 6am and most days she didn’t get home until 5.30pm, sometimes later.’
‘Two o’clock in the morning, two o’clock in the evening’
He added: ‘I thought it would get better.’
He said the trip became so stressful that his daughter enrolled in homeschooling in January and began taking online classes.
“It was too much,” he said, “the bus ride was decisive.”
Although she would no longer be around teenagers her own age, he explained, it was ultimately a good decision.
Hubbard and several other families formed a community meeting a year and a half ago where the board of education and county commission voiced their concerns.
But Hubbard claimed nothing happened. They told me, ‘they’ll see what we can do,’ and that’s it. Nothing ever happened.’
He recalled an idea to use smaller buses and vans and split up the routes instead of consolidating everyone in that part of the province into one long trip.
That idea, he said, was shot down.
Five-year-old Kolbie Hale and her parents Erin and Rick walk home from the bus stop with their daughter
Kolbie’s grandmother Tammy Hale meets her granddaughter at the bus stop. Kolbie is the last passenger to get off the bus
Kolbie’s Erin mother checks her watch as she waits for the school bus to arrive
Monroe County School Board member Sabrina Stutts said she is aware of the long bus rides children in Waiteville take, but claims there is little the county can do.
According to the West Virginia Division of Highways, Stutts said they determined the route the buses are currently taking is the safest, especially in the winter.
She also explained that one of the roads that may not last that long is not always cleared, and said it may be considered a secondary road.
“My understanding is there’s not much you can do geographically to make it shorter,” Stutts said.
Hubbard believes officials should have had a better plan before they started consolidating schools.
“They put all our high schools in the province into one, and instead of putting it in the central part of the province, they put it on the other side of the province,” he argued.
‘It was then set up where children could have a normal day. I mean, I can understand consolidation, but if you’re going to consolidate, put it in a central location, not all the way on one side of the county.”
Until things change, Kolbie will continue her challenging routine. When the bus drops her off at her grandmother’s house around 5 p.m., an exhausted Kolbie is picked up by her parents.
For the youngster, it’s dinner and then bedtime at 7:30 p.m., leaving no time for extracurricular activities and little time for family.
Hale believes the long commute is also taking a toll on her grandchild.
“She’s usually fine on Mondays and Tuesdays,” she said. “On Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays she’s out towing.”
Until things change, she said, “they’re trying to keep the weekends quiet.”
“We’re not trying to keep her on schedule,” Hale said. “The weekends are for rest.”