100 percent inspection pass rate surpasses state average
Kearney, Mo., June 28, 2021: Kearney School District’s latest “A” recipients are big and yellow and have six wheels.
KSD’s fleet of 40 buses earned a 100 percent approval rate on its annual state inspection, according to a June 14 letter from the Missouri State Highway Patrol. That compares to a state average of about 90 percent.
This perfect pass rate is par for the course for KSD, according to Assistant Superintendent for Human Resources and Student Services Jeff Morrison. But that expectation of excellence obscures months of hard work and long days by staff at Durham School Services, the district’s student transportation vendor.
“The team at Durham have really gone above and beyond this year and have earned this 100 percent approval rate,” Mr. Morrison said. “I’m grateful to them for doing an amazing job of maintaining our buses, keeping our kids safe and operating effectively and efficiently. Our schools absolutely depend on their support.”
The annual inspection process happens every March or April, according to Durham School Services General Manager Tisa Wright. It involves a team of five to six highway patrol officers checking virtually every safety feature and critical structural and mechanical component of each bus.
“It basically takes all day for them to inspect all of our buses,” Ms. Wright said. “They are incredibly thorough. They’re looking at the brakes, exhaust system, interior, emergency exits, windows. It’s a long, detailed list, and a bus will get pulled for any item on that list that fails to meet state standards.
Wright has been helping run the KSD bus system since the mid-1990s. Missouri has some of the toughest bus inspection standards in the nation, she explained. Durham will send bus barn managers from other states to her facility to learn how to properly manage and maintain their fleets.
KSD’s fleet runs transports approximately 2,500 students along 15,000 miles of roadway a week during a typical school year, according to Wright. Rigorous training and procedures and regular maintenance are the keys to making sure those routes are safe and smooth.
“Every morning, every one of our drivers goes through a process to make sure that their bus is safe to operate,” Wright said. “If they see anything, it gets pulled into the garage and fixed right away.”
Lead Mechanic Adrian Whitham and Maintenance Technician Mike McGregor have a tight schedule to ensure that they inspect each bus every 60 days. That allows them to perform preventative maintenance so that little issues don’t become big and potentially dangerous problems.
Their efforts paid off during this spring’s state inspections. KSD had a zero percent defective equipment rate, compared to a state average of about seven percent.
Durham School Service’s work is rarely seen but vitally important to the teaching and learning that happens every day in KSD.
“If we’re doing our jobs right, then no one should really notice what we’re doing here in the bus barn,” Wright said. “We do this work because we love helping get kids to school on time and ready to learn, and then get them home safe and sound.”