Unionville-Chadds Ford School Board directors Monday night voted to spend $250,800 on two new diesel school buses. It will be at least another month before the board votes on whether to acquire new electric buses.
Among the options considered was to buy four diesel buses at $125,400 each or buy the two and then lease two electric vehicles. Leasing the electric buses would cost $28,000 per year for each one.
Director Rashi Akki said the district needs four new buses in total, but the board needs to do “a deeper dive” on the electric vehicles.
That deeper dive includes a further examination of the technology and the operating costs.
“There’s a lot of [needed] clarification, so we decided to focus on just the diesel buses and delay the decision on the electric buses to the next month,” she said.
The vote for the diesel buses was 8-0.
One matter that did not come up for a vote was whether to adopt a policy change regarding vaccination exemptions. As previously reported here, the matter centers around possibly removing “moral/philosophical” reasons for an exemption.
A vote had been scheduled for August, but that was tabled because three board members were absent from the August meeting and because there was confusion over the matter, according to Director John Murphy, who chairs the Policy Committee.
Murphy asked for the vote to be tabled again during the Sept. 19 meeting because there have been substantive changes made to the proposal during the last month. He proposed a more detailed discussion of those changes during the October work session.
While there was no substantive discussion about the board’s consideration of changing school start times again, Assistant Superintendent Tim Hoffman sent out an email Monday saying the district will host a community conversation on the issue from 7 to 8:30 p.m. on Wednesday, Sept. 28 in the Unionville High School cafeteria. Go here to register for the conversation.
The email also said a survey would be sent out at the end of the month so that stakeholders who could not attend the conversation could still weigh in on the issue. A vote on changing start times is scheduled for the regular October meeting.
About Rich Schwartzman
Rich Schwartzman has been reporting on events in the greater Chadds Ford area since September 2001 when he became the founding editor of The Chadds Ford Post. In April 2009 he became managing editor of ChaddsFordLive. He is also an award-winning photographer.
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