Even though things haven’t been perfect  —  though they rarely would be in the daily transportation of most of the district’s approximately 3,000 students — things are going well, all things considered.

That’s the message that Warren County R-III Director of Transportation David Tinnin provided the school board at its August monthly meeting.

He said that, through the ups and downs of daily transport during the 2025-26 school year, the district did well to move students without major incident.

“The main objective of our department is to ensure the safety of children to and from school,” Tinnin said. “Last year, we had four accidents. One was a deer strike, and we had three backing accidents. The majority of accidents, industrywide, are backing accidents.”

The information brought a question from board member Franci Schwartz.

“There weren’t any injuries, right?” Schwartz asked.

“No,” Tinnin replied.

“To me, that’s the important point,” Schwartz concluded.

“In backing accidents, I would say 75 percent don’t involve children,” Tinnin said. “You’re either backing up in a lot or you back into another bus, unfortunately.”

While the trips were smooth sailing on the roads, the same couldn’t always be said inside the buses.

Tinnin’s report indicated 558 discipline referrals stemming from bus rides. That number was up from 338 the prior school year.

“One of the things that surprised me this year was our discipline,” Tinnin said. “We wanted to reduce our discipline (instances) by 10 percent from the previous school year. We jumped up over the last year. We’re trying to determine where those are coming from. It’s hard to pin down (a direct cause). However, in one month’s time, we did have three drivers break a bone. We had long-term subs filling in for six weeks to five months. They were out for an extended period of time, and that did account for some.”

He added that while construction on the Highway 47 bridge added time to buses, it could have played a role in the numbers, but the added drive time was negligible.

“We’ll continue to work closely with building principals to reduce that number,” Tinnin said. “We always work during our meetings on bus management skills. They can range from assigning students’ seats to bringing students forward to addressing repeat offenders.”

Tinnin added that the district’s state bus inspection yielded some positive results.

After scoring a 78 percent in 2025, the 2026 inspection came in at 92.2 percent.

“We have people who really work on the buses and (deserve credit for the increased score),” Tinnin said. “I really do want to attribute some of that to our fleet age. We’re trying to reduce the fleet age. We have, over the past three years, been purchasing buses to replace the aging buses. It’s surprising how quickly buses age.”

He added that three Type C, 77-passenger buses were purchased and delivered in July of 2026. Three smaller Type A, Early Childhood buses will be delivered in August of 2026.

Tinnin added that a highlight for the past school year was the GPS turn-by-turn directions for drivers and the GPS tracking for parents.

“It was a huge success – at times,” Tinnin said. “Did it have its challenges? Absolutely.”

Tinnin closed his presentation by outlining the transportation department’s proposed goals for the 2026-27 school year.

They included: no accidents and no injuries; an effort to decrease discipline instances by 10 percent; a 100% state inspection; funding for new fuel tanks and fuel pumps; and funding for a cloud-based camera system for all buses.