UISD Awarded 1.8 Million Dollar Grant to Purchase New School Buses

Posted Date: 03/03/2023

The United Independent School District will be purchasing 26 new, clean diesel school buses thanks to a 1.8 million dollar grant awarded by the Texas Clean School Bus Program. The TCSB program spearheaded by the Texas Center for Environmental Quality provides these grants to replace or retrofit school buses to help reduce children’s exposure to diesel exhaust fumes emitted by diesel buses. UISD was awarded partial funding for these new vehicles in the amount of  $1,891,125.00. This funding is available to public schools statewide and UISD was among the top applicants thanks to the coordinated efforts of several departments including: Grants Administration, Transportation, Business and Finance and Administration/Operations Services. The TCSB grant is available to replace pre-2007 diesel-fueled school buses that are currently owned by the district and operated on a regular daily route to and from school during the regular school year. Eligibility includes that for at least 2 years immediately preceding the application date, the school buses being replaced must have been owned or commercially financed by the district and continuously registered in Texas. UISD Transportation Executive Director, Joe Aranda, says these news school buses will ultimately have a positive environmental impact on our community. 

“The Transportation Dept. is very appreciative of Dr. Landeck and the Grants Department for getting this grant submitted & approved. These 26 new school buses will be replacing the oldest school buses in the district. The addition of these new buses will address a myriad of benefits such as: an enhanced bus ride for our students, more user friendly equipment features for the bus drivers, allowance for more required maintenance downtime for repairs to the other fleet buses, and adequately supplement our spare bus ratio to cover all of the system's routes on a daily basis. All in all, these new buses will be an operational windfall for everyone that either uses the school buses, drives the school buses, depends on the school buses, and everyone else who gets to enjoy cleaner air as a result.”

The new buses are currently in the procurement bid process, and once purchased and received will be distributed across the three UISD bus compounds to serve transportation needs of students across the district. These new buses will replace 26 of the oldest buses currently in service. The grant was awarded in December of 2022.