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District staff recommend 83‑seat bus purchase; board members raise staffing and safety concerns
Summary
Operations staff recommended purchase of a 2026 IC Bus 83-seat bus for $156,000 (state grant $88,110; SPLOST $67,890) and proposed surplus of 31 buses. Board members expressed concern about driver shortages and using large-capacity buses without additional monitors; both items were scheduled for April 21 approval.
District operations staff presented recommendations to purchase a 2026 IC Bus International 83‑seat school bus and to declare 31 older school buses surplus during the April 2025 Board of Education meeting. Chris Small, assistant superintendent of operations, told the board the lowest responsive bid for the 83‑passenger bus was submitted by Rush Bus Centers for $156,000; the recommended funding split is $88,110 from state grant funds and $67,890 from SPLOST funds. The purchase was listed for discussion and scheduled for board approval on April 21.
Small and board members discussed safety and staffing. Board member Miss Simmons said she was “nervous” about a single driver responsible for a large bus and asked how many adults would be on board during routes; Small said most routes have only the driver, though some buses include monitors, and noted the district has chronic driver shortages. Small said staffing variability drives operational complexity and said on many days the department is short of drivers: "On any given week, we are 25 bus drivers short," he said, describing day‑to‑day staffing pressure and the district’s practice of rotating monitors where feasible.
Small also presented a separate item recommending surplus of 31 buses; he said those units had been scrapped for parts and were not in active rotation. The surplus recommendation is on the agenda for board approval April 21.
Why it matters: transportation choices affect student safety, punctuality and instructional time; board members linked bus capacity, routing and staffing to lost classroom minutes and to family and school schedules. Small described routing strategies—scheduling the largest stops first so a full bus’s occupants are concentrated in one neighborhood—as one way to make large‑capacity buses manageable.
No purchases or surplus actions were finalized at the meeting; both items were presented for discussion and were on the consent/approval agenda for the board’s April 21 meeting.
