Keller ISD Says It Didn't Know About Buses Needing Repair
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KELLER (CBS11) - Keller ISD has responded after a Consumer Justice investigative report Monday into unsafe buses.
Keller ISD paid Durham school services nearly $8 million to run it's transportation this school year.
Drivers say they reported broken horns, stop signs and bad brakes to mechanics all year.
Tuesday the school district gave this statement to the CBS 11 Consumer Justice Unit:
Keller ISD was made aware of Durham buses in need of repair through a recent request for public information by a news team resulting in immediate attention to this matter. Several repairs have already been made and others are currently taking place. At no time and under any circumstances will we tolerate unsafe bus transportation. Student safety is and always will be our top priority.
Durham also gave CBS11 this updated statement:
We have completed our internal investigation, and all buses in the fleet have been inspected. To date, maintenance has been performed on all of the buses in service, and they are safe, road-ready and have updated inspection stickers.
When this was brought to our attention, we immediately went into action. We assessed gaps in the reporting process and timeliness of repairs, and are determining where the lack of communication occurred to ensure that this does not happen again. We did find changes in maintenance leadership at the Keller location were needed and we are addressing those issues.
To reiterate, we welcome drivers to report any concerns they have with no repercussions—in fact we provide an anonymous employee hotline. To ensure that employees were heard, we reviewed hotline call records and found no reports filed in in the past six months. We also held a team meeting that allowed for an open discussion with leadership. During that meeting, we reinforced that each of our drivers has the authority to pull any bus from service should they deem it not road-ready.
The safety of our students and our drivers is our top priority, and we will continue to examine our operations moving forward.
