Sitting beautifully atop a plateau easily seen from Hyatt Street, Gaffney High School provides students with virtually every accommodation needed for development needed in today's expanding society.

Less than a decade old, the high school continues to expand upon its promise of giving students the best education possible, stocking the library full of books and computers, in addition to providing a safe place to learn.

Making it on campus prior to their first class, some students will slump in their desks simply believing the day can't be over soon enough. However, their peers in 36 rural South Carolina public school districts would love to be in their shoes.

For approximately 250 students from several of the state's poorest counties and school districts, there's a clear picture — one they wanted to share with the rest of the Palmetto State.

"But What About Us? — Student Photographs from the Corridor of Shame," is currently being shown at the Cherokee History and Arts Museum on Johnson Street through May 22. A video documentary version of the exhibit will also be shown there May 23 at 3 p.m.

Pictures taken by students at these school districts flood the exhibit, leaving some speechless and others appalled about the situation approximately 132,000 students around the state encounter on a daily basis.

"We've heard a lot about the area often called the 'Corridor of Shame' but when you look at the pictures it really hits you how bad their situation is," said Cherokee History and Arts Museum Director Billy Pennington. "You get a different perspective of them and their ability to learn."

Years of diminished revenue sources and the effects of time have reduced facilities in these rural school districts to unsafe conditions in which broken toilets and water fountains, and the presence of rats, snakes and bats are the norm.

"Why do other school districts have brand new facilities and we still have to go to school in an 1896 building?," said a student at J.V. Martin Junior HIgh School in Dillon, which has been in operation since 1896.

"Few of these schools can be fairly considered appropriate learning environments in 21st-century America," said Bud Ferillo, producer and director of "Corridor of Shame: The Neglect of South Carolina's Rural Schools."

Classrooms are also often lacking basic materials, such as current textbooks, computers, calculators and pencil sharpeners. Some schools still use books dating back to the late 19th-century.

"One of the pictures shows some lab instruments that are not able to be used because they are damaged, and the school district does not have the funds to replace them," Pennington said. "A lot of the things we do in education require experience and repetition; from the looks of things, students are not getting any of it and really hurts their grades and potential once they leave school."

According to Ferillo, the 36 rural school districts making up the "Corridor of Shame" consistently rank "below average" and "unsatisfactory" on school report cards, with their language and math scores routinely the lowest in the state.

"By the time students in these poor districts reach the 8th grade, between 50 to 60 percent of them score below Basic, Proficient, or Advanced levels of the state 'PACT' (Palmetto Achievement Challenge Test) tests," Ferillo said. "High school graduation rates in these districts range from 32 to 48 percent, all below average in the state."

Each of the 36 school districts filed a lawsuit against the state a few years ago, Abbeville County School District v. the State of South Carolina, alleging the state did not uphold a court-mandated order to supply districts with enough funding to provide students with a "minimally adequate" education. However, a circuit court judge sided with the state, ruling it had not violated state law.

The school districts are appealing the ruling to the state Supreme Court, where a decision is currently pending. Even if the ruling is found favorable for the 36 rural districts, Ferillo thinks that will not solve the problem.

"Piecemeal, short-term judicial and legislative remedies will remain woefully insufficient to address obvious needs," Ferillo said. "Until the deficiencies powerfully represented by these student photographers are comprehensively addressed, this state's rural school children, over 132,000 of them, will continue to languish and South Carolina's educational system will remain the lowest in the nation."