High Marks for Busing

An annual inspection of the East Hampton School District’s transportation system has yielded a grade of 96.3 percent, the district’s superintendent, Richard Burns, announced during last Tuesday’s school board meeting.

New York State’s Department of Transportation inspects schools’ buses each year, with the target score at 90 percent or better.

“The D.O.T. is very happy,” Mr. Burns said, adding that the district’s buses “are in good shape.”

Isabel Madison, East Hampton’s assistant superintendent for business, said Tuesday that in this year’s audit, only one of the district’s 35 buses was identified as needing maintenance. But it is not necessarily a bus that was used to transport students recently, since not all 35 buses are in use at the same time.

Last year, Ms. Madison said, the district scored 100 percent on the audit. Nonetheless, she said, the district is still pleased with the result this year.

“The significance is that the buses are being mechanically very well treated,” Ms. Madison said. “They are constantly being checked, and everything is according to the specifications of the New York State Department of Transportation.”

East Hampton has been operating its own school buses since 2006, when the private company it had previously been using for transportation went out of business.