High school students in South Carolina are taking advantage of a converted school bus to stay in school and stay out of prison.
The Anderson Independent Mail reported this fall that a “school bus of a different stripe” idled in front of Crescent High School to depict to students what their future might hold if they drop out. The first half of the vehicle looks like a normal school bus while the rested is painted a dull white, which happens to be the color of prison buses in Alabama.
The rear of the bus is an 8-foot by 8-foot replica of a jail cell, complete with a metal bunk bed, toilet and a water fountain once used by prisons in Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore, Ala.
The students watch a short movie that tells them that 75 percent of inmates nationwide are hight school dropouts, and that college graduates earn $1 million more in their lifetime than do dropouts.
The bus has traveled across South Carolina at no charge thanks to a partnership between State Farm Insurance and Personal Pathways to Success, a statewide education program.
