As the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control (SCDHEC) works to track cases of COVID-19 across the state, there is an understandable delay in reporting confirmed cases in public schools. Berkeley County School District is committed to providing stakeholders with accurate and timely information so the BCSD COVID-19 Case Dashboard has been updated to reflect the number of confirmed cases reported directly to Berkeley County School District. These numbers will be updated every business day to provide our community with a more accurate accounting of confirmed cases in Berkeley County schools.  

The content of this database is general information for each location. Any necessary contact tracing is conducted by SCDHEC. This information is updated at the close of each business day. Please note the numbers provided are numbers of confirmed cases reported to the Berkeley County School District and are 14-day cumulative counts.

At the regular meeting of the Board of Education on Tuesday, October 27, the Board approved revisions to the Berkeley County School District (BCSD) instructional calendar to add four half-day virtual instructional program (VIP) days for students. Teachers will use the second half of those four days as workdays. 

On these VIP days, students will be learning from home independently for half of the day. All student assignments will be loaded to Google Classroom and/or other learning management systems by 7 a.m.

BCSD half-day VIP/teacher workdays

• Thursday, November 12, 2020
• Monday, December 7, 2020
• Tuesday, December 22, 2020
• Monday, May 10, 2021

To further support students, each teacher will set office hours that are posted or will be posted in Google Classroom and/or other learning management systems.

Much like the eLearning days of the 2019-20 school year, teachers will have the flexibility to use time not spent assisting students to work in their classrooms, with their teams or participate in personal professional development.

Again, this is a remote learning day, and all students will be learning from home independently. 

If you have any questions or concerns, please contact your child's school. 

About 85 percent of textile waste ends up in landfills where it occupies unnecessary landfill space.

These were textiles that had the opportunity to be recycled but were not.

The reason they do not get recycled is because of a lack of a convenient place to donate textiles.

Residents might notice bright green bins on the property of some schools in Berkeley County School District, provided by a franchise called Clothes Bins, where families can actually recycle old textiles.

The result is threefold with Clothes Bins: textiles get reused as inventory at local businesses, the recycling efforts actually raise money for BCSD schools, and the overall initiative produces a greener option for what residents can do with old clothes.

Textiles include clothing, outerwear, footwear, undergarments, accessories, handbags and linens – these are all things that can go into the bins.

Chad Boariu, director of marketing and training for Clothes Bin, said the franchise is the first clothing/textile recycling franchise in the nation.

The bins are unlike anything else out there. They are equipped with sensory technology inside the bins that alerts Clothes Bins when they are about to be filled up and need servicing – very similar to a vending machine, he said. This technology is called BLIP – Bin Location Information Program – which monitors each bin and alerts the franchisee whenever a bin approaches its capacity and needs to be serviced.

Clothes Bins is in about 15 states, and there are individual schools as well as full districts that have contracted a bin.

BCSD schools with a bin receive multiple benefits: one is it shows the district believes in a green program, and another is individual schools being able to show the overall impact of recycling as a whole.

“You are able to show how you give back to the community,” Boariu said.

Boariu said Clothes Bins’s biggest takeaway is just from the landfill – “we’re trying to make that smaller,” he said.

The schools get paid per pound of everything recycled in the bin, and that is where the fundraising comes in; they receive seven cents per pound that goes back into the school. The bins can hold 600 pounds, so a school could potentially make about $42 every time the bin reaches capacity.

Schools use the money for different items; some of the money is used as “cushion” money while others may go toward the school’s PTO (see the full list of schools with a bin below).

The clothes provided into the Clothes Bins go on to provide inventory for local thrift stores – which is where the recycling part comes in.

“Our biggest thing is there’s always another use,” Boariu said. “Once it goes into a landfill, that’s it.”

Many of BCSD’s schools fall into the territory of Mary Anna Lewis, owner of Lowcountry Textile Recycling. A majority of the schools within the territory were offered a bin, and the first set of bins were set up in May 2019.

Lewis stressed that these clothes are recycled to help local businesses.

“It’s recycling. It’s (being) stewards of the community, it’s fundraising for the schools,” she said.

Boariu and Lewis said they are not discouraging residents from donating used clothes to charities of their choice, but the Clothes Bins model is one that results in a direct effect on the students and administration in that particular school.

A lot of the clothes collected also go to impoverished areas of other countries, like the Dominican Republican and Uganda, where locals can sell the items in their own markets.

“It’s going to third-world countries to marketplace vendors who are feeding their families off of reselling this stuff,” Lewis said.

Clothes Bins has also previously gone into schools to promote the educational aspect of it to students, to show them how they can create business partnerships to help the earth and also provide jobs for families.

BCSD schools use the funds they receive for different items. Hanahan High Principal Tom Gallus said his school puts it in its miscellaneous activity account and use it for supplies for staff and students.

“If there is a student in need, we will use this account to supply them with supplies,” he said.

Whitesville Elementary Principal Katie Taie said her school has been very happy with Clothes Bins. The school uses the funds to supplement field trip costs for parents, and for providing arts performances and enrichment activities for students. The PTO receives the funds and then provides financial support for those experiences.

Whitesville reminds parents through social media and Blackboard to “clean out” their closets when school administration notices upcoming teacher requests.

“Clothes Bin has benefited our school the most by allowing us to decrease the amount of money that we ask parents to spend for additional activities,” Taie said. “Over the past couple of years, we saw a substantial increase in the cost of buses for field experiences and needed to find a way to supplement that burden for our parents.”

Sangaree Elementary Principal Tara Baker said the school has raised a little less than $100 and all funds right now are in the school’s business partner account. She plans to put out a blurb to remind families to provide textiles if they can.

“We would love to raise more (money) to purchase additional personalized learning materials,” she said.

Schools with a bin

Berkeley Elementary

Berkeley High

Berkeley Middle

Boulder Bluff Elementary

Bowens Corner Elementary

Cane Bay Elementary

Cane Bay High

Cane Bay Middle

College Park Elementary

College Park Middle

Foxbank Elementary

Goose Creek Elementary

Goose Creek High

Hanahan High

Hanahan Middle

Nexton Elementary

Philip Simmons Elementary

Philip Simmons High

Philip Simmons Middle

Sangaree Elementary

Sangaree Middle

Westview Elementary

Whitesville Elementary

The purpose of this site is to share information for parents to understand the different technologies being used for instruction as well as provide tips for troubleshooting when tech challenges arise.

oin the professionals on our transportation team. As a team member you will be an important part of the education process. If you are 18 years of age and have a high school diploma/GED you can become a bus driver or assistant. Make a difference in education. Bus drivers and bus assistants are key to our students’ success. We are focused on safety, and we’ll train you!

School bus drivers must pass a rigorous background investigation including a SLED check and a DMV records check. School bus drivers must obtain and maintain a commercial driver’s license with passenger and federal school bus endorsements. They are also required to complete 20 hours of classroom instruction and pass a State Department of Education certification exam.  As a part of their training, drivers also complete many hours of on the road training and pass a rigorous driving evaluation. Each driver must pass a physical performance test and is subject to random monthly drug screening. Annually, drivers attend a minimum of 15 hours of training to maintain their proficiency.

For employment information contact Ms. Lachell Griffin at (843) 899-8725. Applicants can fill out an online application.

Berkeley County School District is an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, creed, national origin, sex, age, handicap or disability in admission to, access to, treatment in, or employment in its programs and activities. 

For bus driver training information contact:
Lachell Griffin - Training and Safety Supervisor

PO. Box 608
Moncks Corner, SC 29461
Office: 843-899-8725
Fax: 843-899-8723
Email: griffinlachell@bcsdschools.net