Sometime during the early morning hours of Thursday, March 2, an individual entered the McDuffie County School System’s transportation lot and damaged 23 of the 63 total buses in the fleet. A 16-year old suspect was apprehended by local law enforcement and school resource officers. Criminal charges have been filed. The suspect is a current McDuffie County student who was being served off campus because of a previous incident.
Officials are working to calculate damage estimates for both the buses and school property. As a result of the damage to our fleet, we were unable to run all of our bus routes today. Absences for students who normally ride buses and were unable to find alternate transportation for March 2 will be excused. The Columbia County School District has agreed to temporarily loan buses from their fleet, and all regular bus routes will resume March 3.