New state data released Monday shows that Wake's bus inspection score has improved 28 percent this year from last year, when only four much smaller school districts had worse ratings.

But even with the gain, Wake's bus fleet still recorded more defects than average for this part of the state.

Also, Wake, the state's largest school district, still has a worse score than most Triangle districts and Charlotte-Mecklenburg, the only district in the state with more buses. In the Triangle, only Chatham County had a worse average score.

Even so, Wake officials were happy about the better score.

"Everybody worked hard to improve the scores," said Eddy Adams, Wake's senior director for transportation. "We're not going to let standards slip."

After last year's inspection report, Wake school officials increased maintenance efforts for school buses.

Adams said his department pressed to ensure that state-mandated monthly inspections of all 878 buses were carried out. He said his mechanics received more training about what state inspectors were looking for in the buses.

Additionally, Adams said that all employees, including bus drivers, supervisors and mechanics, shared in making sure buses were properly maintained.

Each school year, the state randomly inspects 10 percent of every school district's bus fleet. Points are given for every problem found, such as oil leaks, fuel leaks, improper tire pressure and inoperative dashboard lights.

The lower the score, the better the safety rating. A score is an average of all problems found on buses inspected.

After checking buses earlier this month, a state inspector gave Wake an average score of 67.59. That's compared to a score of 94.02 in 2006-07. Wake's scores had been going upward for the past few years.

"Going from 90 down to 67, that's probably not luck of the draw," said Derek Graham, section chief of transportation services for the state Department of Public Instruction.

Adams said his goal is to get Wake's score to below the average for the eastern region of the state -- 55.79 this year, with two more school districts still to be inspected.

Wake transports an average of 70,000 students each day.

With far fewer buses and student passengers, Chatham's score nearly doubled from the prior year, going from 38.7 to 70.2

Beth McCullough, a spokeswoman for Chatham schools, said the inspector found problems on a few buses that led to their being briefly pulled out of service. She said parents shouldn't be concerned about the change in score.

The average score improved for the Orange County school system, which also maintains the buses for the Chapel Hill-Carrboro school system. George McFarley, Orange County's associate superintendent for support services, said this school year they told mechanics that supervisors would be checking behind them to make sure that they had done the work they had indicated.

"People will do things when they know they're being checked on," McFarley said.

Durham continues to have the best scores for any of the Triangle districts, lowering its score by half over the past three years. Scott Denton, Durham's executive director of transportation, said they focused on things such as making sure more parts are on hand to make repairs and doing more preventive maintenance.

"We wanted to be better," Denton said. "We weren't satisfied before."