27 Williamsburg County school bus drivers suspended

Twenty-seven bus drivers from the Williamsburg County School District were suspended after a meeting Monday morning for planning to strike and delay transportation services for the next two days.

According to a high-ranking official within the district, interim superintendent Linda B. Huell suspended the drivers for planning not to drive their assigned routes Monday afternoon through Tuesday afternoon.

Administrators at each school in the distinct said bus schedules ran as planned Monday morning.

It is unclear whether Huell has the authority to suspend district employees. Earlier this year, the board of trustees stripped then-superintendent Dr. Ralph Fennell of his powers over the district personnel, stipulating that any decisions of that nature would be run through the board first.

Upon Huell’s selection as interim superintendent, board chairman Rev. Norman Gamble said actions that were applied to Fennell would apply to Huell as well, saying moves were made to the “position not the person.”

The situation began Oct. 20 when 17 bus drivers didn’t make their scheduled pick-ups at three district schools, leaving 185 students stranded for several hours. A district official said at the time the missed pick-ups could be the start of a bus drivers’ strike in response to what drivers claimed was a cut in pay following the board’s changes to the overtime policy.

Apparent abuses of the old policy cost the district $500,000 last year, according to a report given to board members in October.

The board subsequently put the district’s transportation director, Willie McKnight, on administrative leave as a result of the report.