As another school year draws to a close one southeast Texas district is already planning for the future.
When Lumberton Independent School District recreated a crash between a truck and a bus full of kids they tried to make it as true to life as possible.
"Get everybody trained to highest level we can so that in the event of a real accident they're ready and prepared to take care of the situation," said the LISD director of operations Lynn Bilberry.
With the driver of the truck acting as the fatality and school bus drivers acting as children hurt in the wreck both first responders and district officials were able to work on their response time and life-saving techniques.
"If you don't have some kind of training in this area it'd be chaos," said Robin Skaggs who has been driving Lumberton school busses for six years and is thankful for drills like these so she can learn how to best protect her precious cargo.
"You've got kids that you travel with day in and day out and if they got hurt, you know, they're my bus family."
Two Beaumont fathers who lost their children in the 2006 West Brook bus crash, are lobbying for a bill that makes tougher rules for teen drivers, kids car seats, and big motor coaches.
"Anything legislation can do to help make the transportation for our kids safer then I'm in favor of that," said Bilberry.
But part of the bill is adding seat belts to busses and Skaggs is on the fence about that.
"No way I could get 50 kids off of a bus with seat belts but their good too so I'm torn and I know a lot of other drivers are too," said Skaggs feeling torn an the subject of seat belts.
But all can agree this drill, and others like it, is an invaluable tool to make sure everyone's ready in case of a real emergency.
The district will conduct an after action review to point out what they did well and what can do better next time.
This is the first drill Lumberton ISD has done but administrators say they plan to practice mock emergency situations twice a year.
