A trustee board meeting of South Panola Schools attended by two Panola County supervisors should go a long way toward stifling perceptions of rampant abuse of school bus turnarounds.

Two issues emerged during the trustee meeting attended by District Five Supervisor Cole Flint and District Four Supervisor Kelly Morris who also serves as supervisor board president:

—Some excessive driveways have been built in the past in the name of school bus turnarounds;

—It is ultimately up to Panola County as to the extent of work done to construct or maintain a bus turnaround.

School officials will now submit a list of actual locations needed for the current year rather than adding to an ongoing list each year as in the past. The school district will also take turnaround locations off the list once the student or bus driver no longer uses the  location.

Concerning the extravagant driveways, members of both boards agreed that several mentioned were done before any current board members were in office.

School Superintendent Keith Shaffer later explained that parking or turning around  a school bus is not easy while noting the persnikity nature of the school’s transportation director Scootie Murphree when it comes to maintaining the school district’s 68 bus fleet as a factor.

And it was Murphree who told the group that it was his job to go to each site recommended for a school bus turnaround and look at it before the recommendation is made by the school board.

“That’s my job and I’m not going to abuse it,” he said, emphasizing, “We don’t abuse this  policy.”
Murphree and Shaffer also revealed that it was usually their practice to deal with road department foremen for turnaround maintenance, not with road manager Lygunnah Bean in his administrative position with the road department or his policy position with the trustee board.

Bean would later ask for guidance for the road department on private subdivisions with bus turnarounds with Murphree stating, “I’m sorry. It’s a mess. It tears our buses up.”

The meeting was a step in the right direction and has at least let two boards know what the other is doing.
Not mentioned in any the public discourse has been student safety. Let’s hope in the course of being frugal and responsible with citizens’ services, child safety is not overlooked.