The Onteora School Board voted unanimously to decline an $8.5-million EPA grant for electric buses. The board cited lack of guidance, rushed timelines and the inability to cover the full cost of vehicles and charging infrastructure.
“We had additional conversations today, and we are still very much uncomfortable with moving forward right now,” schools superintendent Victoria McLaren said at the September 26 meeting. “The state sent out information last week and they included the roadmap and a guide, and I think the guide had ten sections, but only the first four have actually been written. It’s a very rushed process.”
On September 28, New York governor Kathy Hochul announced the availability of $100 million in state funds for zero-emissions school buses under the $4.2 billion Clean Water, Clean Air, and Green Jobs Environmental Bond Act of 2022. The sum announced was the first round of funding as part of a $500-million allotment for buses.
The state has mandated that all school buses must have zero emissions by 2035, but purchase orders had to be made this year for federal funding.
The school district administration and all the members of the school board had supported rejection of the federal grant two days earlier.
“In our conversations today, it was suggested that we could ask for a much longer extension,” McLaren had said. “I don’t know if there is going to be any agreement on the EPA side for granting that. We could put in an extension for another month and come back to it a month. It is not going to get us where we need to be.”
The EPA was only granting 30-day extensions, she said.
“We don’t want to do something now that we’re going to have to undo in two years because it was done too quickly without enough due diligence and enough planning,” McLaren explained. “So we’re really betwixt and between right now.”
Board vice-president Valerie Storey noted that battery fire-safety issues have made the electric buses have been a concern of hers from the beginning.
“When we had the first bus people come in, they said that if there was an accident or something that they had five to eight minutes to get to the scene with that, that they would come in and train our professionals or professional firefighters,” Storey said. “They will train them on what to do, but they won’t give them the materials … or the necessary equipment that is needed to fight a fire or an accident when it comes to the electric buses,” she said. “If we can get a two- or three-year extension for this, that would be great.”
Trustee Caroline Jerome agreed. ”The best-laid plans of mice and men .… I love it in concept, but sometimes you have to pivot. It’s so important these days to be agile and to recognize when you have to push it into the future,” Jerome said.
Despite the limit of 30-day extensions, trustee Sarah Hemingway Lynch wanted to try for a one-year extension.
“The people that we spoke with today from Highland Fleet said they have some contacts at the EPA, so they would reach out and support us to try and ask for a lengthier extension,” McLaren responded. The district was in the process of contracting with Highland Fleet for a contract to lease the electric buses.
“Nobody thinks we’re going to get a full year, but I kind of thought, if we can ask, it doesn’t hurt to ask,” McLaren said.
Trustee Clark Goodrich also supported the view that the district is being rushed into the implementation. He agreed with the superintendent and all the trustees had said. “We’re being rushed into this, and that seems like a high-risk plan and we could be exposed.”
With more than $8 million on the table, Hemingway Lynch asked whether there was any way the decision could be delayed until the next board meeting,
Storey said it wasn’t realistic to expect an answer in that short amount of time. “We all know how the government works,” Storey said. “They are not going to get as an answer back in two weeks by our next board meeting to have to answer that. So we all know how when we try to get information from SED [State Education Department] how long it takes.”
The funding application process for the $100 million in state bond-act money will open November 29. A webinar to explain the process is set for October 11.
Asked about Hochul’s announcement, McLaren expressed a wait-and-see stance. “We will need some time to review the funding and the associated timelines before contemplating whether we are in a position to apply for this opportunity,” she said.
Onteora scorekeeping
A move to use only state Regents exam scores as part of the GPA calculation when it was beneficial to the student failed to generate enough interest for a vote, despite the urging of Onteora school board vice- president Valerie Storey. Storey said the move would be consistent with the district’s Do No Harm policy and that the state Education Department has advised against using Regents scores in GPA calculations.
If a student otherwise passed a class, failing a Regents exam could bring them down to a failing grade for the class. Not only would they have to retake the Regents, but they would have to repeat the class. In Kingston, passing students are allowed to advance to the next class, but would only have to retake the Regents.
School board president Cindy Bishop recent data showed no students failing classes as a result of failing Regents exams.
“When I reviewed the information that was presented to us at the last board meeting, I saw that a number of students passed the class because they passed the Regents and that their Regents scores helped them achieve a final average that that was passing. I think there were eleven,” Bishop said. “And on that same data chart, there were zero students who failed the class because of their Regents score. And I know that’s just a snapshot from one year, but I do think that’s really important information to consider.”
The Storey motion failed to get a second, and so there was no vote.
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