How many students ascend their school bus’s steps each morning and sink into their seats at the end of each school day?
According to the New York Association for Pupil Transportation, over 2.3 million students ride the school bus each day in New York State. These students, when considering a standard 180-day school year, will spend hundreds of hours on the school bus.
With 50,000 school buses that spend hours a day transporting students in our state, the impact of converting every school bus in New York to electric is immense. This was the reasoning of the state government when, in 2022, it passed historic legislation mandating that every public school district in New York have an entirely electric school bus fleet by 2035. The mandate also forbids districts from buying diesel school buses after 2027.
According to the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority’s webpage “Why our Kids Need Electric School Buses,” this legislation was passed for many reasons, including the health risks posed by long exposure to diesel, the air pollution caused by diesel and gas-dependent vehicles, and an overall desire to reverse the “environmental degradation from burning fossil fuels.” The NYSERDA cites that if every school bus in New York State were converted to electric, the consequent decrease in emissions would be equivalent to removing 180,000 cars from the road. Along with environmental and health concerns, the NYSERDA also applauds the quiet nature of electric buses that enable clearer communication between drivers and students and the impressive long range – up to 200 miles per charge – of these vehicles.
In order to aid this huge transition for New York State, the Environmental Bond Act, passed in 2022, provides $500 million to public school districts. However, this will only cover a fraction of this transition. When considering that there are 50,000 school buses in New York and that an average electric school bus costs $400,000 (compared to an $80,000 diesel bus), the cost of this law for New York State exceeds $20 billion. Along with the cost of these buses, the majority of schools will need to incur the cost of building charging infrastructure, maintaining these buses on their school campuses, and even hiring additional mechanics. According to Haldane Superintendent Dr. Gail Duffy, for the Haldane district, the cost of these infrastructure changes could be around half a million dollars.
Due to these high costs, districts are incredibly anxious, however supportive they may be of environmentally conscious changes. Groups like the Lower Hudson Education Coalition, which include the Haldane Central School District along with many other schools in the area, are currently petitioning to put a pause on the mandate or delay it until requisite funding can be found. Environmental Protection Agency funding, which was once available for electric bus purchasing, has ceased to exist due to the policies of the current federal administration and its rejection of much of the science around climate change.
According to Duffy, she and the Haldane Board of Education truly “believe in the work behind the mandate,” but they also need to be “responsible fiscally for our school.” Along with requesting a waiver to extend the deadline for fleet transition and regularly meeting with Assemblywoman Dana Levenberg, Senator Rob Rolison, and other New York State legislators, Duffy is consistently looking for grant opportunities to alleviate the burden on the Haldane Central School District. Additionally, in order to start saving for these expensive buses, the district is creating a Capital Reserve Fund that they are titling the Transportation Reserve Fund. Any leftover funds not used at the end of each school year will be put into this fund to avoid an excessive increase in taxes in the coming years – in fact, the plan is to keep these increasing costs tax neutral.
Duffy is hopeful about the future of this project, but as of now, she remains unsure about many of the logistics. Before buying buses and proposing changes to infrastructure, Haldane Central School District, along with all other districts in New York State, must undergo the Fleet Electrification Plan Survey. This is a thorough evaluation of an action plan for districts that need to “electrify” their bus fleet. The plan takes between six and eight months to complete. Haldane will likely complete the plan a year from now. After that evaluation, Haldane can begin making serious decisions about how and when they must start purchasing or leasing vehicles and renovating their current infrastructure.
Although the road ahead for electric buses is still uncertain, the Haldane Central School District is responding with vigor to the state mandate. The required changes are extensive because the district started early and is already allocating funds, but Duffy said she believes that this transition is attainable and will ultimately be truly beneficial. She said that the new pre-k program has given her a lot of inspiration for the electric bus transition process. “This regulation is inspiring to me in terms of thinking about the possibility of not having diesel and having cleaner air for our young ones, ” Duffy said.
