With the dog days of summer well upon the Pine Belt, officials from the Petal School District are constantly maintaining their fleet of school buses to ensure as many of those vehicles as possible have air conditioning to beat the sweltering heat.
Superintendent Matt Dillon said between its five schools, the district’s transportation department currently runs 42 buses daily; of those, only eight are without air conditioning. To remedy that, the district purchases two brand-new buses per year – complete with air conditioning – to upgrade the fleet.
“Those eight (buses without air conditioning) only run single routes, so we don’t run the full double routes with non-air-conditioned buses,” Dillon said. “Some buses run double routes, because of the elementary and secondary schedule, and then some run just single routes.
“Of those buses that are not air-conditioned, they run shorter routes. For well over a decade now, we’ve been purchasing two brand-new buses per year with air conditioning, so every year we’re continuing to upgrade our fleet to buy new buses with air conditioning, for those double routes we run.”
In addition to the shorter routes for non-air-conditioned buses, officials on those vehicles also provide water to students who request it. So far this year, two buses already have been purchased, with two more expected to maintain that schedule next year.
“’The buses (for this year) already came in,” Dillon said. “They’re already on the road.”
When new buses are purchased, the district auctions off some of the old ones, while some are kept as extras in the transportation department’s bus barn.
“If one goes down mechanically, or if we need an extra one for a sporting event, (those are available),” Dillon said. “We auction off (the other ones) to get them off our inventory after they have high mileage and cause us mechanical issues or something like that.
“We go ahead and get rid of those.”
Several times over the past few weeks, temperatures in the area have stretched out past 100 degrees, necessitating multiple “excessive heat warnings” from the National Weather Service in Jackson.
Depending on several factors, a new school bus can cost in the range of $125,000.
“Every once in a while, we’ll find one for about $100,000,” said Steven Hampton, superintendent of the Lamar County School District, which also is upgrading its fleet with more air-conditioned buses. “But then if you start adding (costs for) special needs students with lifts and things like that, the 71-passenger larger buses that we’re trying to purchase are more.
“So you can get up to the $150,000 range quick with some of the specialty buses. It adds up quick.”
