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Bus vandals cancel first day of school

Posted at 6:29 PM, Aug 24, 2016
and last updated 2016-08-25 07:45:13-04

This parking lot should have been full and the classrooms should have been filled with excited students Wednesdays. But. Concord School District will have one more day of summer.

"My daughter, especially this morning, was real excited about coming to school," Superintendent Dan Funston said. "So yeah, a lot of kids were excited about coming to school. So this is just disappointment."

Funston was excited, too. It's his first year as Superintendent. But, on his first day with the students, he had to deal with ten flat tires. One on each of his buses.

The vandals didn't have to work hard to get into the bus yard, though. The gate was left open.

Police say the vandals stuck something in the stem valve to let the air out, causing some of the tires to come off the rims.

"It wasn't a situation that we could fix right away and really didn't have the option to call a two-hour delay on a half day of school and so we ended up having to close," the Superintendent explained.

The gated area where the buses are kept doesn't have any surveillance cameras, but Superintendent Funston told Fox 47 News he quickly ordered one this morning. As for Wednesday night, with the help of the Jackson County Sheriff's Office, he's got a security plan in place.

"It's pretty likely that it's a student or a past student I would say. That's the direction we're leaning, but again anyone with information can call us and we'd be glad to talk to them about it," Jackson County Sheriff Steve Rand said.

His Office has a few leads and the Superintendent told us the teachers and staff met Wednesday to talk about a plan to keep their ears to the ground when the school year starts Thursday.

"We're gonna find out who did it. That's important to me, that's important to everybody that we do, so that something like this doesn't happen again," Superintendent Funston said.

The District will be offering a reward to any student that comes forward with information on the incident.

The Sheriff's Office said the criminals are facing a malicious destruction of property charge, which could result in a fine, jail time or community service.

Superintendent Funston said it's likely the District will have to make up for the canceled school day.