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the latest round of funding: an additional $7.5 million will go to 35 school districts to purchase 67 new diesel or alternative-fuel buses. Last June, Ducey released a $38 million plan to purchase more than 280
new school buses for low-income communities, where at least 60 percent of students are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch. Similar requirements are in place across the country. Laveen Elementary School District in Phoenix is looking to use VW
money to reimburse the purchase of three new diesel-powered Blue Bird All Americans. “It is a reimbursement program, so we will receive funds after we submit paperwork that shows we purchased the buses and submit the scrap documentation,” said Director of Transportation Eric Kissel, who oversees the fleet of 35 buses that transport nearly 1,500 students a day. “I anticipate the buses arriving in June and imagine reimbursement will take place in July, maybe August.” Next door in California, Valley Center-Pauma Unified School District north of San Diego is looking to implement all-electric school buses into its current fleet of 27 diesel buses that transports 2,300 K-12 regular and special education students each day. Director of Transportation Cheri Mc- Gee said she has been navigating through the various in-state grants and is intrigued by the $130 million in VW funds—although she’s yet to wrap her mind entirely around what is needed for the charging stations. “My mind was whirling,” she said after attending a recent information session that was presented by the California Energy Commission. “There is so much stuff you have to do to get electrical infrastructure [installed in] school buses.” She said one potential electrical source is an existing transformer box
in her yard that is used to plug into buses during the evening to clear soot from the particulate filters. San Juan Unified School District in Sacramento is also interested in elec- tric, but Director of Transportation Tom Carroll said much needs to be done to prove sustainability and cost effectiveness. San Juan runs about 135 diesel Type C school buses, with the oldest being 21 years, and 15 gasoline Type As. “It’s really difficult for me to say in the future that, yeah, I’m going to buy
$350,000 school buses that are electric if they don’t pencil out on the lifecycle cost,” he said. “I’m not going to buy them with my own money. I’ll use grant money to get in there and try it out and see how it is. But to date, the state has not come up with alternative fuels that are effective for us to continue to run.” Carrol ran CNG at Shasta Union High School District in Redding, Cali-
fornia, but he said the lifecycle costs of natural gas were still higher than diesel, despite increased costs of the latter tied to maintenance on the emissions systems. Even then, he needs a shop technician to work on noth- ing but maintaining and troubleshooting the diesel emissions systems. “I am looking into propane, which is one of the things I definitely do be-
lieve is sustainable and cost effective,” he added. “I’m very interested in and trying to figure out how to get some of buses, but the state is not allowing districts to use any grant money to buy propane. But it’s a viable alterna- tive, especially with the cost of (maintaining) diesel.”
Review what your state says about Volkswagen Mitigation Trust Fund money at
stnonline.com/go/4u.
them called a press conference during Jones’ first year to publicly complain. In reply, Jones quickly enacted another ele- ment of leadership: Tough love. “I’ll be honest, I was upset. They hadn’t told me anything ([about these grievanc- es),” he said. “These times today, people are willing to get on Facebook and Twitter and say just about anything. It’s like, wait a minute, you’re going to be a part of this organization, so you are going to demon- strate loyalty. Loyalty is at least giving the chain of command an opportunity to address your concerns, before you just go out and start saying negative things [publicly] about us. That’s not the way or- ganizations do that, that’s not … how we’re going to do it. We’re going to be a team.” Jones oversaw an increase in starting
pay to $17.49 an hour from the previous $12.88 an hour, and with it came the addition of two full days of professional development. “We ended up that year adding more bus drivers, we increased their salary and added to the number of hours they were getting paid for the day. All of those things say, ‘We hear you,’” continued Jones. “But now that we hear you,” he stressed,
“here are the things we want. We want you to be better trained, we want you to have a good attitude with our students and to know how to manage them on the bus.” It also meant buy-in from the drivers to not deviate from their routes. And that also meant the drivers had to arrive at their destination within the five-minute grace period, plus or minus. “That was a different mindset, but to
be quite truthful, our bus drivers have responded greatly to that,” added Jones. “I think they are thankful, I think they know they are a part of the team, and [Anthony Jackson] has done a great job in responding to their continuing desires for understanding, as well as their need for professional development.” ●
46 School Transportation News • APRIL 2019
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