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RUTLEDGE — The 2023 summer school session in Grainger County will consist of fewer bus routes.

The Grainger County Board of Education Tuesday night approved Director of Schools Mark Briscoe’s plan to have drop-off points for students who attend summer school to begin May 30 and end June 23.

Briscoe used a map of Grainger County to illustrate the 45 drop-off points for students attending summer school. There will be a total of nine buses running for summer school. Briscoe unveiled the plan to the board before parents learned about it.

“What we’re proposing is we’ve got these drop-off and pick-up points,” Briscoe said. “We spent a lot of money running buses with very few kids on them last summer. We’re going to get our kids to school, but parents may have to get their kid to a pick-up location. Because of the geography of it, we have to do three buses on the other side of the mountain (Washburn area) because it’s so spread out. Two buses per school will work.”

Briscoe consulted with Tennessee School Board Association counsel Chris McCarty concerning the bus routes.

“Boards of education may provide school transportation and boards of education may in their discretion,” McCarty advised.

Briscoe said that the word “may” in McCarty’s advice means that the system is authorized, but not required, to provide transportation.

The main priority of the summer school is mainly third through eighth grades. The third graders take on a higher priority this year due to passage of the Tennessee Third Grade Promotion/Retention Law by the General Assembly last year.

“We want to give parents an opportunity, but we don’t have all the bus drivers to run the routes even if we want to,” Briscoe said. “We cannot run the bus routes. This will allow us to hire drivers. Every driver on every route is a Grainger County employee and they have all committed to driving every day. Isn’t that what we want? The people who do that will be very committed to making this work.”

Briscoe used Joppa Elementary as an example if there should be issues.

“If we have an issue there, do you know what we’re going to?” Briscoe asked. “We’re going to get into a county vehicle, me or Brett (Coffey) and go pick them up. Something happens across the mountain, Aaron Clay (interim principal at Washburn) is going to get into a vehicle and go get them. We’re going to try to make it right.

“This is going to be very economical. The buses, I do not think, will be just overflowing with kids. If there is a hot area, we might add another bus if we have to,” he said. “As long as we’re not saying ‘we’re not going to haul Joppa kids and haul other kids,’ we are totally legal as long as we’re not making distinctions based on a kid being a second or third grader.”

Briscoe thinks the system wasted a lot of money running all of the buses for summer school last year. The state gave the county $55,000 to run all buses last year.

“It’s never a waste doing what is right for a kid,” he said. “We can be more cost effective and make smart financial decisions because you all want us to be better stewards of the money. That’s what we think this (plan) is.”

The routes were made by the Central Office in consultation with the building level principals, Briscoe said.

“They know the kids they’re worried about,” Briscoe said. “They were included in the entire loop when this was set up. They all think it will work.”

Briscoe said that a lot of the pick-up points are already pick-up points daily.

The proposal passed on an 8-0 vote with member Johnny Brooks and Chairman Harold Frazier absent. Vice-Chairman Marcus Long presided over the meeting in Frazier’s absence.