BELLE — The Maries County R-2 School Board on Oct. 26 approved a midday bus route for preschool aged children, paid for with grant funds, at the recommendation of Superintendent Dr. Lenice Basham.

“I would like for us to add a midday preschool bus route,” Basham said. “Right now they can ride the bus in the morning, they can ride the bus home, but that midday they have to bring them. What we are finding is that there are kids who really, really need to be at preschool who can’t be here. Their parents don’t have a car, they don’t have gas. There’s multiple reasons why they can’t get them here.”

Basham said the district qualified for an $80,000 transportation supplement grant that will cover the cost of a driver to run the midday route for the preschool students.

“We have several students who have qualified for the preschool program but the families are unable to afford the middle route,” Basham said.

Maries R-2 has two preschool classes  — morning and afternoon. Students in the morning classes may ride the bus to school with an older sibling or pre-existing stop. Students in the afternoon class may ride the bus home with an older sibling or pre-existing stop. However, there is not a midday bus route option. Many of the parents have struggled to find help with midday pickup and dropoff events.

“We would like to add a route during the midday,” Basham told the board.

Preschool teacher Carol Koch spoke with parents about the possibility of the route prior to the meeting to discover the needs of the parents. The route was initially meant to stop only at the daycare centers in town, drop off one group of students and pick up the next. However, the scope changed after further information came in and grant funds were received. Basham would like the route to be all inclusive.

Board President Joey Butler II asked if there would only be one route and how it would work if there were students going to Bland, Belle and Vichy. Would one student be on the bus for hours? Basham said she hoped not, but didn’t want to start gathering information until the board approved it.

“They have to be here a specific amount of time in Ms. Koch’s class to qualify for reimbursement for attendance,” she said. “We are going to try to work on all of those things.”

Funds to pay for the route will be taken from a COVID-19 grant from the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) which places an emphasis on early childhood education by fully funding the preschool program. The program was historically funded from the Missouri Preschool Project, which were reduced each year until the district totally funded the program.

“There is a supplemental transportation COVID grant the district qualifies for that should cover the route for the year,” Basham said.

The cost is approximately $80,000 with benefits for the extra route.

“If we find that it is a great thing, we can vote on it again next year,” Basham said. “We are still going to have a lot of parents who want to bring their kids and grandparents who really like that time with their grandkids, but I would like to offer this route to the midday program.”

Butler asked which bus the students need since they are small. Transportation Director Tony Gieck said the district will have to use car seats if the students are under 40 pounds or four-years-old. 

“If they are four-years-old but weigh 60 pounds they don’t have to be in a car seat,” Gieck said.

Further information will be gathered before the route is implemented.