MCC superintendent talks about Friday’s bus red tags

SCOTTVILLE — Mason County Central Schools Superintendent Jeff Mount confirmed this morning that several MCC buses were “red tagged” last week during a Michigan Department of Transportation inspection. The tagging caused the school district to re-route some bus routes and to borrow buses from neighboring school districts. Most tags were minor, however.

“We have a new bus inspector that takes his job very serious,” Mount said. “He was here last Thursday and Friday inspecting our bus fleet.  An annual thing as required by law.  I will say his timing was awful and the inspection process is not conducive to our normal bus operations this time of year as we have many special trips and athletic events along with our daily bus runs that puts a high demand on the number of buses needed each day.

“The process is an all-or-none process, if the inspector finds something that may not be in compliance with updated regulations, then he ‘red tags’ the bus until it can be remedied.  These changes cannot be done while he is here.  So, with him red-tagging some of our buses and our need to transport our students, we borrowed some extra buses from Ludington and Eastern so we could continue to provide the expected level of service our families count on.”

Most parents and bus drivers commenting on the topic, on our Facebook page, said the transition was a little smooth and caused little issues. Some parents did say they would like to have had a little more information regarding the bus changes.