Maries County R-2 School District in Belle received a 75-percent rating on its annual 2019 Missouri State Highway Patrol (MSHP) Driver & Vehicle Safety Divisions bus inspections report, the second lowest score in three counties.

“When they come to inspect the buses, it is a challenge for everything to be perfect,” said Superintendent Dr. Patrick Call about the inspections. “It’s because of the roads we drive. A bulb will shake loose or a rock will hit a windshield or a tire may get a flat. It happens regularly.”

MSHP inspected 11,958 school buses across Missouri, of which 89.3 percent were approved by inspection personnel with no defective items noted. Buses found to have no defective items are rated as “approved.”

Buses having one or more defective items which do not constitute an immediate danger are rated as “defective.” Buses with a defective item which constitutes an immediate danger are rated as “out-of-service.” Buses rated as “defective” may continue to be operated for the purpose or transporting students until the repair is made.

According to the report, Maries R-2 presented 12 buses for inspection; nine were approved, two were found defective and one was reported as taken out-of-service. Transportation Director Tony Gieck said the bus that was reported “out-of-service” actually had a blown motor the shop is working on fixing.

“You have to call and tell them in advance to take buses off the list,” Gieck said, explaining that the district had previously reported they had 12 buses, and should have made it 11 so the last bus wouldn’t be inspected. 

“We didn’t call in advance about the bus with the blown motor, so it was on MSHP’s report, continued to be inspected, and taken out of service,” Gieck said.

As for the defective buses, Call said, “All the buses that were defective were fixed probably before they left the lot, so they got their tag. But since it wasn’t perfect when they looked at it, it was defective.”

Gieck said if the mechanics could fix an issue before the bus left the bay, it wasn’t counted on the report. However, if the bus was pulled out onto the lot before it was fixed, it was a mark against them. The repairs, he said, were very minor.

“What I remember is that one of those defective buses was a windshield wiper with a quarter inch tear,” Call said.

While the district has already made the repairs to the defective school buses and received tags, they have 10 days to report repairs to MSHP and have the out-of-service bus reinspected or it is reported to the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.

Call said the district plans for minor and major mechanical repairs.

“We try to keep a spare bus or two,” he said. “That is why they do those bus inspections before they leave on route. The district generally watches nine or 10 buses, and a couple are sitting on the lot as extras that may need a little TLC before they can use them.”

According to past MSHP reports, in 2017, the district had 14 buses, of which nine passed; in 2018 they had 13 busses in which nine passed; and in 2019 they are down to 12 busses.

“We are down to 12 buses because why have that many buses and pay insurance on them if we don’t need them?” Call said. “I think the maintenance on our buses is done well and bus drivers in the past three years are much happier because we have Tony doing the maintenance on them.” 

Gieck added that it is because of the two older buses that he consistently is docked on points.

“Two buses that are 2001 buses have over 200,000 miles each and have the biggest issues, but all minor stuff,” Gieck said. “I am getting ready to get rid of the 2001 this next year, that has between 200,000 and 225,000 miles on it and looking to replace the short bus that got wrecked.” Gieck said he is in the market for a big bus and a smaller-style bus. 

“If I get rid of the older buses, the next older bus is a 2007; but the only buses that got dinged were two older ones.”

Call and Gieck said they are happy with their ratings this year, up from the 2017 score of 64.3 percent and 2018 of 69.2 percent.

“Tony works hard to make sure the buses are running at a high level,” Call said. “ We have an idea when they are going to come, but you can’t predict when a light bulb is going to go out or something unknown that you can’t fix until you know it is there. That is why there are inspections and why bus drivers do their daily inspections. Tony tries to keep track of all of it.”

Maries County R-1 School District in Vienna received a 69.2 percent on the inspections, the lowest in three counties. They presented 13 buses of which nine were approved and four found defective. Superintendent Mark Parker reported that while the score was low, all of the district-owned school buses passed at 100 percent.

“None of our buses, school owned or contracted, were put out-of-service,” Parker said.

Parker said during the inspection, some of the district’s contracted buses had minor flaws such as cracked light covers, play in the steering wheel, and other minor adjustments. Parker said all of the items were considered minor (defective) and they were all addressed before the inspectors left the school. All the buses passed inspection before the end of the day.

Gasconade County R-2 School District in Owensville received a 100 percent on their inspections.

Superintendent Dr. Chuck Garner said the district is very pleased with the results.