Tuesday was a big day for the McDuffie County School System as a ribbon cutting was held for its new STEM and literacy bus.
For Mychele Rhodes, superintendent for McDuffie County schools, is was an exciting day unveiling the new STEM and literacy bus, also called the “Bulldog Express.” The bus will not only provide literature to members of the community, but also has science, technology, engineering and mathematic (STEM) materials on board. It is the first bus of its kind in the CSRA, she said.
“This has been a vision of ours for the last five year,” Rhodes said. “We of course are a rural community, it’s important that we can provide outreach to the children that haven’t even enrolled in McDuffie County schools. This STEM bus is going to allow us the vehicle and the mechanism to be able to reach so many children before they even enter McDuffie County schools.”
Rhodes added that research shows that the more immersed children are in reading, the greater success they will have later in their life, so the school district wants kids to expand their STEM knowledge as early as possible.
“All schools in the district will benefit from the services of the Bulldogs Express as well as the day cares here in our community, and when we have special events such as athletic contests and competitions, the Bulldog Express will make an appearance,” Rhodes said.
During the ribbon cutting ceremony, Dr. Lynn Cato, director of curriculum and instruction, said a lot of hard work by many people went into the bus, from members of the central office staff to Bryan Worley, who did the work on it.
“We envision this, as Dr. Rhodes says, as a way to have outreach into our community, to share this with our community and to build a love of learning and engagement,” Cato said. “For five years it’s been a passion of ours and a dream of ours to be able to have a bus such as this. I hope that when you tour it, you’ll see that passion and vision come to life, with lots of hands-on activities, a maker space inside and lots and lots of books that we’ll be able to share with our community and read with our community.”
For Worley, working on the bus for McDuffie County School System was “rewarding.”
“Our company [Worley Construction] is focused on getting into the underserved communities when it comes to literacy and STEM,” Worley said. “These smaller rural counties is what we really enjoy working with.”
Worley added that a nonprofit, the Buell Omar Foundation, was started to help school districts get STEM buses.
“We have a website where we’re focusing on getting that funded where we can just build them and donate them to communities that don’t have the resources to purchase them.
Stephanie Hill is the managing editor and covers Columbia County government for The Augusta Press. Reach her at stephanie@theaugustapress.com.
