This back-to-school season, the list of electronics includes not just laptops and calculators but something a little bigger — the school bus. Nearly 200,000 of the more than 25 million students who take the bus in the U.S. will catch an electric battery-powered ride this year, according to the World Resources Institute. 

WRI’s data analysis finds that over 800 school districts in the U.S. have at least one electric bus on the road, and funding is secured for about 12,000 more — about 2.5% of the nation’s nearly 500,000 school buses. But at a cost of around $350,000 per bus, districts say they would not be able to fund new fleets, including buses and charging infrastructure, out of their own budgets. 

A $5 billion cash infusion from the Environmental Protection Agency, passed as part of the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act in fall 2021, is a boost for electrifying fleets. Federal grants have funded over two-thirds of committed electric buses. Some states have helped fill additional gaps, including California and Massachusetts.  

School buses are ideal for electrification, explained Leah Stokes, an associate professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Buses “run the same route every single day, and they can charge in the middle of the day,” Stokes said. “Those are some of the easiest things to electrify. And that’s why it’s so important to move to electric school buses. It’s better for our health. It’ll save school districts money, and it’s of course better for our planet.” 

The politics of going electric could reduce funding opportunities depending on who is in the White House come next year, Stokes said. “If Trump is elected, the fact is that we would lose this funding,” she said. “[Trump] is not interested in electrifying our transportation system.” 

Federal funding is key

At Modesto City Schools in California’s Central Valley, superintendent Sara Noguchi said her district initially planned a $12 million investment to electrify half of its fleet from diesel to electric. 

The district, which buses about 5,200 of its students each day, rolled out 30 electric buses over the course of the 2023-24 school year. The district has reduced its out-of-pocket cost to $3 million from that original estimate, according to district officials. 

Noguchi said her district would not have been able to make the investment if not for federal funds, and acknowledged that funding can sometimes be political. 

“I’m hopeful that as a nation, we’re committed to doing the work around sustainability that we know we need to do whichever political party is in place,” Noguchi said.

The savings are already starting to add up in Modesto, where Noguchi said diesel costs have been reduced by 41%, or 47,000 gallons of fuel, reducing the school district’s emissions. 

“What does that equate to? A little over a million pounds in two years of carbon that’s not being emitted into the Central Valley and into our air system,” Noguchi said. “Over time, and especially if we have all of our buses and other districts have all of their buses, that’s going to be a big game changer.”

There are health upsides to reducing emissions, too. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that 4.3 million school-aged children in the U.S. have asthma, which the EPA says can be caused or made worse by exposure to diesel exhaust. 

Until there are electric vehicle chargers available wherever students go, including high schools where Modesto students are bused for sports and senior trip destinations like Disneyland, Noguchi will need to hold onto a couple of diesel buses for long-range trips. 

“They get off with a smile”

For parents, the change is welcome. Elvira Ceja has three kids in Modesto schools, two of whom have respiratory issues and allergies, respectively, that she said are exacerbated by diesel fumes. 

A year of riding electric buses has reduced the number of headaches Ceja’s kids reported, averted trips to the doctor’s office and improved their overall mood, she said. Toddler Maite can greet her brothers Aaron and Ariel at the bus stop without her mom worrying about air quality. 

“They used to get off the bus angry,” the stay-at-home mom explained. “Now, they get off with a smile and they get a ball and they go outside and play.”

Ceja believes the new buses are worth the investment. “We always want our kids to be safe,” she said. “For the whole entire community, less pollution here in Modesto, that’s great.”