submitted by Dr. Nathan Schilling, District 158 Superintendent
The Lansing Journal published an article on June 13, 2024, regarding a $2.76 million grant for electric school buses. Lansing School District 158 has been receiving a few questions about this, and I would like to provide some clarification.
District 158 agreed to be a sponsor for our bus company, Kickert School Bus Line, to pursue a federal grant for these buses. We indicated support for the grant but did not actually submit the application ourselves. That process was completed by Highland Electric Fleets — a company that provides these new buses — with the understanding that they would be kept and maintained by Kickert. This is considered a flow-through grant where Highland applied for the money with our District’s sponsorship and then will provide the buses to Kickert.
EPA is providing grant funding for eight new electric school buses that will be used by Kickert for our student transportation routes. District 158’s children will directly benefit from these clean, energy-efficient, lower-emission school buses. With Kickert maintaining the new fleet, District 158 will not be hiring our own drivers or keeping the buses on our property. However, we are very excited to support this grant and others like it in the future. Our partnership with Kickert and Highland will improve the safety and efficiency of student transportation.
Any of our stakeholders are welcome to contact Mr. Mark Crotty, Assistant Superintendent for Business & Operations, at (708) 474-6700 or [email protected] with any questions about this grant or our District’s transportation program.
Consider these facts about electric vehicles: safer? Battery fires very toxic and hard to extinguish, self igniting fires including whe charging, less engine noise harder to know when they are on.
Cheaper? Batteries very heavy – adds to wear and tear on other parts, expensive to build and udrnllll with child labor, expensive to repair and replace, availability and cost of charging stations both home and on the road; the infrastructure to build and maintain from start to finish including up grading local electric grid all powered by fossel fuel
Edit previous….. battery components mined overseas by.child labor.
Federal and state.Grants author has been involved in specifically prohibited supplier/vendor, openly at least, from writing grant for their own product as a conflict of interest.
A lot more to consider than government “free money”’ whether for school busses, tractor trailer trucks, fire trucks, garbage trucks. Even LPG (natural gas) are just starting to prove it self
Opinions expressed at those only of author and no one else