More than 30 Berkeley County School District bus drivers off-duty, the district doesn’t confirm if they are suspended

Hundreds of parents of students in Berkeley County are affected by the school bus drivers strike that started last Friday.

As we already reported, Tuesday was the third day of Berkeley County parents scrambling to get their kids to and from school.

On Tuesday, more than 30 bus drivers were absent from work, but the district didn’t confirm if they are suspended from work or it was drivers’ choice not to come at work.

Since last Friday, there have been delays in the schedule and district officials were unable to confirmed when the issue will be fixed.

A district representative said that it does not comment “on matters of personnel” and that we would have to follow the Freedom of Information Act request process.

South Carolina FOIA law allows the school district ten business days to acknowledge the request and then another 30 business days to release the information,

If the district decides to follow that rule, it could be next year before the district may finally confirm or deny the suspension.

“Well, that’s just total nonsense, because there is no blanket personnel matter exemption in the open records law,” expert in media law Jay Bender said.

“What that is, is an effort by the school district to delay a response,” he said. “If the school district [was] really interested in having its constituents and taxpayers know what was happening, that question would be answered without you’re having to submit any requests for anything except ‘please answer this question.’”

It remains unclear if the school buses will operate as per day schedule on Wednesday.