Kindergarten flop: Five year-olds in West Virginia must commute for THREE HOURS a day to and from school just 20 miles away because bus route is so long, leaving exhausted youngsters with no time to play

• Kolbie Hale, 5, leaves her home in Waiteville at 5.45am each day to get to school at Mountain View Elementary, and arrives home nearly 12 hours later 
• The bus takes the scenic route instead of driving a more direct path as officials argue it is safer, particularly in the winter
• Many locals claim bus times have only increased over the years with the consolidation of several schools in Monroe County

Kindergarteners in rural West Virginia must endure a three hour commute to and from school each day, leaving the five year-olds too exhausted to play.

Among them is Kolbie Hale, 5, who gets up at 5am each weekday and leaves her home in Waiteville, West Virginia, each day at 5.45am- like clockwork.

Her parents drive her to the home of her grandmother Tammy Hale, a few miles down the road. There, she she waits for the 6.25am bus to Mountain View Elementary and Middle School, with the trip taking 90 minutes.

She arrives in time to recite the pledge of allegiance with the rest of her classmates at 8.25am, The Register-Herald reported.

The school, located on Mountain View in Union, is just under 20 miles from Kolbie’s home in Waiteville, roughly a 30-minute drive by car if taking State Highwy 3 West, the most direct route.

But Kolbie is picked up first and must then endure a very scenic route to collect the other children, including a trip over Peters Mountain. And at the end of the day, she must suffer the same journey in reverse after school ends at 3:25pm – meaning she’s the last student dropped off, at around 5pm.

She has dinner with her parents Erin and Rick Hale, who have themselves just finished work, and is in bed by 7:30pm to give her enough sleep before she wakes up again at 5am the next day.

An excruciatingly long day for a five-year-old that has caused a mix of frustration and angst by many families, who claim that the bus times have only increased over the years with the consolidation of several schools in Monroe County.

Little five-year-old Kolbie Hale with backpack in tow is seen getting off the school bus after a grueling commute

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 needs of the children should come first.

She warned that an 11 to 12 hour day, five days a week, for ten months a year, for 13 years –  is not in the best interest of any child.

‘These students, they have to do this anywhere from 10 to 13 years depending on if they start in preschool,’ Hale said.

‘But for kindergarten through 10th grade, let’s say — so right there’s 11 years that they are 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.

Up until 2009, the area had a postal office, and according to a 2020 census a population of approximately 12,000.

Greg Hubbard, a longtime resident of Monroe County, remembered when he was a kid, the agonizing hour and 20-minute bus ride he took each way 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 had not.

His daughter Arabella, 15, was dealing with the same issues.

‘She’d catch the bus at 15 till 6 in the morning and most days she’s didn’t get home till 5.30 in the evening, sometimes later.’

‘Two hours in the morning, two hours in the evening,’

He added, ‘I thought it would get better.’

He said the trip became so stressful that in January his daughter enrolled in homeschooling and started taking classes online.

‘It got to be too much,’ he said, ‘the bus ride was a deciding factor.’

Though she would no longer be around teens her own age, he explained, it was a good decision in the end.

Hubbard and some other families formed a community meeting a year and a half ago with the board of education, and the county commission voicing their concerns.

But, Hubbard claimed nothing transpired. They told me, ‘they will see what we can do’ and that’s it. Nothing ever happened.’

He recalled one idea of using smaller buses and vans and splitting up the routes instead of consolidating everyone in that area of the county into one long journey.

That idea, he said, was shot down.

Five-year-old Kolbie Hale and her parents  Erin and Rick walking home with their daughter from the bus stop

Kolbie’s grandmother Tammy Hale meets her granddaughter at the bus stop. Kolbie is the last passenger off the bus

Kolbie’s Erin mom looking at 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 that children in Waiteville have, but claims there is little the county can do.

According to the West Virginia Division of Highways, Stutts said they determined that the route the buses are currently taking is the safest, particularly during the wintertime.

She also explained that one of the roads that may not take quite as long is not always cleared, and said it may be treated as a secondary road.

‘It’s my understanding that there’s kind of geographically, there’s not a whole lot to do about it to make it any shorter,’ Stutts said.

Hubbard believes that officials should have had a better plan in place before they started consolidating schools.

‘They consolidated all of our county high schools into one, and instead of putting it in the central part of the county, they put it on the far end of the county,’ he argued.

‘It was set up then to where kids could have a normal day. I mean, I can understand consolidation, but if you’re going to consolidate you 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 back at her grandma’s home around 5pm, an exhausted Kolbie gets picked up by her parents.

For the youngster, it is dinner then bedtime at 7.30pm – leaving no time for extracurricular activities and little family time.

Hale believes the long commute is also taking its toll on her grandbaby.

‘Monday and Tuesday, she’s usually okay,’ she said. ‘By Wednesday and Thursday and Friday, she is dragging.’

Until things change, she said, they ‘try to keep the weekends quiet.’

‘We don’t try to keep her on schedule,’ Hale said. ‘The weekends are to rest up.’

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