The IRE Resource Center is a major research library containing more than 23,250 investigative stories — both print and broadcast. These stories are searchable online or by contacting the Resource Center directly (573-882-3364 or rescntr@ire.org) where a researcher can help you pinpoint what you need. Browse or search the tipsheet section of our library below. Stories are not available for download but can be easily ordered by contacting the Resource Center:
Search results for "school buses" ...
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School Buses Flunk
The safety inspections of 30,000 Connecticut school buses showed that one in four buses was unfit to carry children, yet state officials ignored this issue.
Tags: school bus; safety; schools; inspection; vehicle
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Bus-ted
The story reveals a number of things about a school district’s bus system. Some of the things revealed are school buses breaking traffic laws, and extensive records of the bus drivers, including traffic violations and speeding tickets. Once the findings were revealed, the school district wasn’t sure who hired them and the school district allowed them to be bus drivers as long as the insurance companies approved them.
Tags: Cedar Rapids Public School District; school administration; education; transportation; children; kids; Denny Schreckengast; Matt Dunbar
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Dodging Dart
“Des Moines Area Regional Transit travels 3.7 million miles a year”. Many people use the system to travel back and forth to work and school. These people haven’t had bad experiences, but fear for the pedestrians coming in the way of the bus. There have been “at least seven people hit by the bus in a little more than two years”. Little has been done to make the streets safer because it is difficult, when hiring, to set criteria for them.
Tags: buses; downtown; Brad Miller; drivers; transportation; collisions; safety; accidents; route
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Curse of the Class of 2006
This story explains how the class of 2006 became known as the “cursed class” due to the number of deaths during and following the 2006 school year. The school, Carol City Senior High, was one of the best based on the facility and placed in a location still considered farmland. But after students were bused in from surrounding neighborhoods, things began to change and academics fell to the back burner, while athletics excelled. Further, many students believed the atmosphere became very ghetto, which led to several deaths from the class of 2006, who were considered top students.
Tags: education; high school; public; murders; death; violence; Florida; violent; neighborhood; area
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Broken Buses
This series of investigations revealed serious, recurring and widespread safety violations involving hundreds of school buses used to transport nearly 20,000 children to Indianapolis-area schools, and the expanded to show critical safety problems affecting thousands of buses in school districts across Indiana. The investigation exposed problems not only with the school buses, but also identified gaping deficiencies in the Indiana State Police bus inspection program. It triggered immediate and dramatic action, prompted Indiana's largest school districts to call for more stringent oversight and more frequent inspections and provided parents with a hands-on tool to monitor the safety history of their children's school buses.
Tags: buses; public transportation; public safety; safety violations; school buses; investigation
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School Bus Disgrace
This investigation exposed abuse, neglect and corruption in New York City's school bus system. The reporters found cases of students being sexually abused on buses, of buses breaking down, and of special needs children being mistreated. The investigation revealed that the Department of Education had no way to track repeat offenders, and often punished misbehaving drivers with little more than a verbal reprimand.
Tags: education; transportation; FOIA; children; safety; school; crime
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School Bus Breakdown
This investigative series found that South Carolina owns and operates the oldest, least safe, and most polluting school bus fleet in the country. The investigation also addressed the state's failure to mandate a school bus replacement age.
Tags: education; safety; transportation; buses; schools; school districts
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Learning to Leave
"An in-depth examination of where Denver's children ages 5 to 17 are enrolled in school. The newspaper partnered with Denver Public Schools and a local foundation to provide the first data on the impact of school choice in Colorado on the states most urban school district."
Tags: school; district; zoning; busing; enrollment; Denver; commute; minorities; charter schools;
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Fit to Drive?
According to this Dispatch report, "167 school-bus drivers in Ohio have records of drunken driving or drug abuse." The investigation includes a chart of where in Ohio these drivers operate, and also notes the difficulty "for school officials to check backgrounds on drivers or keep those with drunken-driving convictions out of school buses." Individuals with such histories are profiled.The superintendent of the State Highway Patrol is quoted saying that as someone who has arrested drunken drivers, "I would never want any of these people driving a bus."
Tags: buses; drunk driving; drunk driving convictions; background checks; Ohio bus drivers; school buses
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Target 12 Child Watch: Uncovering Daycare Violations
WPRI-TV investigates reported incidents where young children had been "wandering away from daycare centers" and "children being left sleeping on school buses." They looked into the frequency of these incidents to examine how safe daycare centers are, and inform parents on how to find out more about their child's daycare center. They uncovered cases of abuse and neglect, with unsupervised children finding themselves in harm's way. They also found that 21 of the 59 daycare centers they examined "were in violation of staff to child ratios," 18 of 59 "violated hand-washing procedures," and 15 "had fire safety issues."
Tags: Child care; daycare; unsupervised children; child endangerment; child neglect