When Farmington Public Schools Superintendent Jon Laffoon began at the district six years ago, he immediately realized that transportation was an issue.
“My first summer here started in July, and then by September we had buses breaking down, some problems with our buses. I think the district had purchased used buses in the past, and they were starting to age out and have some problems.”
So they started leasing buses, and that worked for a while. Laffoon, in the meantime, turned his attention to heating and air within the schools. The district’s 260 HVAC units were beginning to age out and require frequent maintenance.
“And we did an energy project with our ESSER funding.”
ESSER, or Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief, was a series of federal grants the Department of Education created to help U.S. schools respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. Laffoon says the district was able to make significant investments that led to major savings with that extra cash.
“I replaced 230 HVAC units, built three solar arrays for the district, replaced all of our lighting with new high-efficiency LED lighting throughout the district, and did a water conservation project. And so those projects are big-scale, large-scale in our district. And what I saw after the first year was significant savings. That first year we gained almost $300,000 in savings just on electric, water and just energy-efficiency lighting and then the new HVAC units. And so then the next year, we gained more. My initial plan all along was to use that money to start giving retention bonuses to our staff, to try to keep our great teachers here in the district and our workers here in the district. And then that kind of spun into the EPA grant.”
In May 2024, the EPA announced the district would receive $1.22 million through the 2023 Clean School Bus Program. With it, they purchased six new electric buses. And so far, Laffoon says, administrators, teachers, students and community members are very pleased. These new vehicles have generated a lot of noise. Metaphorically speaking.
“If you’re just looking, you probably can’t tell the difference in these buses and our traditional diesel buses. The big difference, honestly, is the sound. There is no sound. It’s like when you get on these things, it’s almost mind-blowing how quiet they are. There’s no engine roar. There’s no firing up gear, stripping—all the things you get with the diesel bus.”
For example, here’s a standard diesel bus. And here’s one of Farmington’s new electric models.
Not only are the new buses quieter, Laffoon says they smell better, too.
“When you’re standing out at bus duty in the morning or afternoon and the buses are loading, kids are getting on—with the diesel, they put out a pretty strong emission. You can smell it immediately when you’re around those buses when they’re running. And with these you really do not know, Jack, that they’re even running when they are running because they’re so quiet. And then the emissions—so clean. Cleaner air for our kids, that makes it a little safer. Plus, the kids love the quiet and the drivers love the quiet. And we’ve got nothing but great feedback about these buses so far.”
Dean Campbell is director of safety and transportation for Farmington schools. He says that one of the new electric buses is wheelchair accessible, and the lack of noise and smell stimulus is incredibly beneficial for the students who have to ride the vehicle every day.
“But the big one is having the wheelchair bus, especially those kids having sensory issues—getting a quieter environment for them as they travel to and from school helps our driver, helps our aide. The buttons that are on there—Mr. and Mrs. Sutton that do that—helps with that. And so it just all around gives them a better environment.”
As with most electric vehicles, “range anxiety,” or the fear that you might run out of battery before you can recharge, is a prevalent worry. According to an August 2023 report from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, most currently available electric vehicles have ranges between 110 to over 300 miles. Larger batteries and growing access to charging are increasingly addressing these concerns.
Laffoon says these anxieties were also prevalent for the school district, so they decided to invest in an adaptable charging station, allowing all six buses to recharge for short and extended trips.
“We can plug those buses in, and if we need a bus to go out on a long trip, we can charge it faster and slow down the charging of the other bus that’s plugged into that same unit, or slow down the charging on all five buses. It just allows us to adapt by need, and what we’ve seen so far is we keep those buses for us—because our district, land-wise, is quite a bit smaller than some of your larger districts. These buses are great. We don’t have to charge them every day. And so if you keep those buses charged somewhere between about 30 and 80%—for us, for our district—that’s perfect.
“Now, if we’re sending one out on a trip to Van Buren or somewhere it’s a little bit further away, we’re, of course, going to charge it up to 100%. And the range on these buses is somewhere around 150 miles on a charge. So it’s not a bus that you could take across the country.”
Given the new buses’ 15- to 20-year lifespan, the district is projected to save $150,000 in maintenance costs and $10,000 to $15,000 in annual fuel expenses.
Laffoon says the district is celebrating now, but at one point, these wins in efficiency were still up in the air. When the EPA awarded Farmington the grant dollars earlier this year, they were quickly put on hold.
“They came back and said, hey, because of what’s happened with the election, all of this money is going to be on hold while the government takes a look at it. And so we thought we were going to have the buses and be up and running and then it was about a six- to nine-month wait to hear anything back.”
The district had to reach out to the agency on its own, and about three months later, the federal government responded.
“They said, hey, if it was awarded before this time period, the government’s going to go ahead and honor the grant. But it was about a year-long wait. So things kind of died down there as we were planning all that. And, yeah, I think the kids and the staff are really happy to have the buses. And we heard some really positive feedback initially, but during that waiting period where we were having to persevere and decide if we were going to stick with the project, I think things kind of died down on that front.”
Laffoon says he’s glad they followed through. From savings to students breathing cleaner air, the buses have been a positive addition so far.
“Yeah. I mean, our mission statement is to positively impact every single student every day. And so that’s not just in academics, in our choir and our music program and our athletic program—that’s in our transportation, that’s in our child nutrition. And I think that’s what motivates us. Our district-wide sustainability strategy has been aggressive—solar, water conservation, LED—and it’s paid off for us. And so cost-smart school operations, cleaner for the environment. It’s good for the environment. It’s a smart investment in our student health. And then it’s given us the operational savings to provide all of our staff, certified and classified, with the retention bonus the last two years. And so we should have that for the next 20 years. And that’s sustainability to me.”
Jack Travis produces his story inside the Bruce and Ann Applegate News Studio One.
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