Dexter Board of Education: cleaner diesel buses, school of choice slots and an easement

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In its last meeting of 2020, the Dexter Community Schools Board of Education bought eight new buses, expanded school of choice slots and approved an easement, again.

The meeting was held virtually on Dec. 7.

For its transportation decision, the school board authorized the purchase of seven 77-passenger buses and one 54-passenger special needs bus from Midwest Transit, at a total purchase cost not to exceed $844,792 with individual costs at $106,466 for the 77-passenger bus and $104,627 for the 54-passenger bus.

Giving an overview of the purchase recommendation, school board president Julie Schumaker said DCS applied for and received a 2020 EGLE (Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy) Fuel Transformation Program Volkswagen State Mitigation Trust Grant that will fund 25 percent of the cost toward replacing eight pre-identified “dirty diesel” buses.

The new buses are defined as “clean” diesel engines.

In the recommendation memorandum to the superintendent, DCS Transportation Director Deneen Smith said the objectives of this project are:

  • Reduce diesel emissions, particularly nitrogen oxides and fine particulate matter
  • Improve air quality inside the school buses, outside where buses idle and along roadways where buses travel
  • Increase protection of human health and the environment with an emphasis on school children and populations located in priority areas (areas designated as non-attainment and maintenance areas for the National Ambient Air Quality Standards)
  • Incentivize the utilization of technologies that have the greatest emission reductions

Smith also said in the memo, “We have a budget from the 2017 bond issue to replace our school bus fleet over 10 years. The bond plan was to purchase 3 buses in 2019-20 and 5 buses in 2020-21. The bond budget for the first 8 school buses was $730,000. We were waiting on the outcome of this grant to procure buses under the bond. We would like to move forward with the purchase of eight school buses at this time.”

The grant will enable DCS to be more efficient with the bond funds and absorb the increased cost of the newer diesel buses, according to Smith.

“With the new emissions technology, it is the recommendation of our bus mechanics that we purchase the 10 year 200,000 mile complete engine and after (exhaust) warranty on these buses. They believe it will save operational costs over the lifetime of the buses. Even with this unanticipated add, because of the grant, the net cost is nearly $100,000 less that the budget allocation. Also, know that the buses replaced under the grant must be completely disabled, so they will not be available to sell as used school buses,” Smith said.

Superintendent Chris Timmis said DCS has traditionally not done school of choice decisions in the middle of the school year, but this year is different. The district has had many requests for various reasons.

In his recommendation, Timmis said, “As a limited schools of choice district, Dexter has traditionally offered fall SOC enrollment only. This year, due to uncertainty created by the COVID-19 pandemic, DCS has had an unprecedented number of mid-year transfer requests, as well as a large number of students who did not return this school year. The unusual movement in both directions is due to families trying to find program options that best fit their family’s needs. Since the pandemic continues to create uncertainty regarding return to full-time in-person instruction, we expect more requests for transfer and are therefore proposing that Dexter add a mid-year application window for the 2020-2021 school year.”

DCS lost 240 students this year.

“Having the ability to plan the switch will relieve families and help our staff be more effective in meeting their needs, as well as offset some of the enrollment losses. Students accepted for second semester SOC status will need to be enrolled no later than January 29, 2021,” Timmis said in the recommendation.

The school board approved the following: at least two spots for the IB Programme (one student each from grades 9 and 10) plus a minimum of one student in each grade from Young Five through eighth grade, as well as at least one spot for the Virtual School and at least one spot for the Early Middle College for the second semester of the 2020-2021 school year.

And finally, the easement decision goes back to a school board decision from earlier in 2020.

“As part of the twin turfs construction, DCS mitigated a wetland,” the school board notes said. “At its February 10, 2020 meeting, the Board of Education authorized the Superintendent to sign a conservation easement providing EGLE (formerly MDEQ) with wetland access for inspection. Due to COVID-19 interruptions, execution of that document wasn’t completed and needs to be done now.”

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