001The time is now 3:34 p.m. Good afternoon and welcome to the March 25th, 2026 electric school bus and bus lot modernization focus workg groupoup meeting. I am Pamela Stru committee chair and district 3 board of education member. It brings me great pleasure to welcome everyone to today's meeting. For those unable to observe now, the meeting is being recorded and can be accessed on the PGCPS YouTube channel for later viewing. The agenda and documents can be found on the PGCPS diligent page linked from the board of education homepage. I thank all of you for committing to this important oversight and partnership work. And I especially thank my colleague Amy Olivo, board member for district 4, for joining me in co-chairing uh this workg group and uh also for agreeing to uh lead uh some of our
002meetings. So uh you will we will both be sharing that duty through this process. Um Miss McMillan, please call the role. >> Miss Boozer, >> present. Miss Amy Olivo, >> present. >> Miss Dorothy Morrison, >> present. >> Miss Cynthia Escobar, >> present. >> Miss Kate Rob, >> present. >> Mr. Raone Palencia Calvo, >> present. >> Mr. Sean Matlock, >> present. >> Mr. Baldwin >> present, >> Miss Sheila Stevens, >> present, >> and Mr. Seth Finton, >> present. >> Roll has been recorded. >> Thank you so much, Miss McMillan. Uh, this afternoon, we have uh two items for discussion. each item. We will limit each member's questions and feedback to 2.5 minutes per round. Uh starting with um item 4.1, the introduction of committee members and our workg groupoup charge. Um, first we are um going
003to uh put the workg groupoup charge document up on the screen and review review uh elements of of what a focus workg groupoup is for PGCPS and uh Miss McMillan, are you able to uh present that right now? >> Yes. Give me one moment. think so. I could I'll give a little background on policy 8100 while we're um u before we review the document. But back in 2019, the board of education uh had conversations about how beyond our committee meetings, could we delve into some of the um challenges and opportunities that that board members it's it's quite common for board of education members to have some areas of interest that they would really like to help within the school system. And we found that the committee model of policy 8100, which is quite standard for
004for how a board of education operates and Robert's rules of order and everything and and we we actually um came up with a different model called the focus workg group. And it requires quite a bit of the board member ahead of time to make sure that we are spending time on an issue or a challenge that this that the superintendent and administration um are in alignment with. And so we we have found we have uh utilized this model for the overall climate change action plan and uh other issues over the years that board members wanted to go deeper into. And we are now do using this model from policy 8100 for this very specific more specific work group related to the climate change action plan on the electric school bus conversion piece of it as
005well as the bus slots and uh charging infrastructure. And so the um the charge of our group is really miss you know starts with our mission alignment to PGCPS and the climate change action plan and where we're headed as a system around safe modern uh uh healthy indoor air quality schools uh construction um and healthy air quality um from uh reduction of diesel emissions and usage of modern the you know leading moving towards modernization around uh battery storage and and so all those alignments are reflected in and why we're doing this work. Um if you could scroll down. And so the goals of our work group that we are um you know the the big the big goal is the the the assessment of where bus electric bus slots charging infrastructure can be geographically located
006for max for for maximum route efficiency of the electric bus. Um, we're completing a district-wide charging infrastructure assessment around the bus lot modernization and decentralized charging. We're looking at total cost of ownership analysis and identifying funding pathways and clarity on the role of alternative fuel um as a bridge strategy to the year 2040 and establish a phased electric bus transition roadmap recommendation. And this is not the beginning of the work. This is really an opportunity a few three three four full years into into the work to come back together and assess where we are and and support um the future from the administration and the board side. And then I you know we will welcome all of our members in a moment. And is is is is there one more page that has the dates
007of our meetings or at least the the outline of our meetings? Yeah. And you could see here on this page that we are working through each of these topic areas uh one meeting per month. uh we have agreed to uh a Wednesday afternoon each month and then we will reach a point where we are ready to draft recommendations and that that time is reserved for the s summer to do some drafts come back in August review those recommendations and finalize in a September meeting which will conclude the focus workg groupoup's work except for the for the final step of coming to the October board meeting and having the opportunity to officially have the board vote on these recommendations and that is essentially the handoff to um administration. Um at this at this point uh we
008did not put in here that we would have any new policy recommendations, but that that does not mean it's that we we might not find that we do. So I did just want to note that that could be part of the process as well. And so with that, I think we could bring this off the screen and begin our introductions. And you know, I thought it would be great if we could each say, you know, who we are, kind of the hats we wear in the the world of PGCPS. And cuz I know some of you hold more than one and uh talk about a little bit about your you know passion for this work like why why you know particularly for for our volunt our volunteers you know you're giving up time and attention
009to some something else in your life but you wanted to bring this you know contribute to this work so with that I'll just start with my colleague Amy Alivo and then we can go to our volunteers and then we'll go to our staff experts. Thank you. >> Thank you so much um board member Boozer Stru. My name is Amy Olivo. I'm so proud to represent District 4 on the board of education. I'm just thrilled to be part of this group. um longtime environmental advocate as well as education advocate and also my two PGCPS well PGCPS graduate and current student have been bus riders for I was just trying to count 12 years of of busing. So um I'm also very aware of their experiences um with the buses and you know really am encouraged to
010see this this work move forward. Um, so thank you for for having me here. >> Thank you so much. Uh, Kate Kate Rob. >> Hi. Thank you so much for having me. My name is Kate Rob. I use she her pronouns. I'm a proud parent of a first grader at Caesar Chavez and my son also rides the bus every day to his afterare program. Um, I became interested in this because I work in environmental health in my day job. I work um within public health and really try to uh raise awareness and policy systems change related to climate change and advancing health equity. So, I'm pleased to be part of this and also Pamela, I'm so excited that you already brought up indoor air quality because that's another thing that I want more people to
011talk about and I'm like um just jazzed to be in this group. So, thank you so much. >> Yeah, thank you. So, great great to have you. um Cynthia Escobar who is uh representing our 132,000 students. >> Hi, good afternoon. My name is Cynthia Escobar. I attend school at Fairmont Heights High School. Um first I would like to say thank you so much for this opportunity, Miss Pomela. Um, why I'm I love I like being in this group because our climate change and we need a change like the diesel school buses to electric because I have a lot of friends that have asthma and they get affected by it and mostly also because our generation too, we have pregnant mothers that could get affected by it also their babies too. But yeah, thank you so
012much and Yeah, so great to have you and thank you for for all you do at Fairmont Heights High School and in the community. Um, so I will now go to Ramone Palencia Calvo. Are you able to come on camera? >> Yes, I am. >> Oh, great. >> Thank you so much. And uh again, Ramon Palvo. I'm a senior director at the Maryland Legal Conservation Voters. The Maryland League of Conservation Voters is a statewide nonpartisan environmental organization where we use advocacy and political action to protect our natural resources, clean um air, land, water, and the health of our communities in Maryland. And um thank you so much for this opportunity to serve in this group. Uh as you all as you might know, we've been working on electrification of school buses since 2017. Our primary
013role within electrification of school buses is educating community members uh board members and the public in general on on um the benefits of electric school buses and the state of the technology as well as work with our elected and appointed officials to advocate for policies that advance electrification of school buses including funding for electric school buses. And again, it's a pleasure to be here. Thank you. Thank you so much, Ramon. And um I'll just also note that Ramon um uh spent a full year on the climate change action plan uh workg group and then also joined our ad hoc uh the board's ad hoc oversight committee for the climate change action plan. So Ramon's um commitment uh has just just been outstanding and his expertise has given us so much. So, it's so great to
014have that continuity of your service on this workg group. So, thank you. Um, so now, uh, Dorothy, how about if I go to you to introduce the staff expertise team here. >> So, well, good evening or is it still afternoon folks? Um, thank you all for being here. Uh my name is Dorothy Morrison and I have the almost pleasure to serve as the director for the office of sustainability and resilience that is charged to lead the climate change effort. So we have the plan and the office is is here to sort of help lead and shepherd it through now. Did you want me to introduce the rest of my team or do you want them to go individually? >> Yeah, how about if you now call out each member each? Yeah. >> Okay, sure. I'll
015just call them and let them say just a brief u few words just um by way of background for those who are sort of new and not familiar with who I am. Um I've spent over two and a half decades in the field of environmental protection and the environmental stewardship. Uh my early career was working for local governments with an organization I guess a nonprofit called International City County Management Association and subsequently I worked for the state of Maryland both at Maryland Department of Environment and Maryland Department of uh transportation um leading efforts like environmental justice and just leading the whole office of environment at at transportation. So with that said, you know, it's it's obviously a pleasure to now serve Prince George's County, the county I lived in I live in and have lived
016in for about 30 years. So, with that, I'm going to um pitch it over to Director Baldwin. Ka Baldwin, do you want to introduce yourself? >> Sure. Thank you. Good evening, everyone. My name is Ka Baldwin. I am the director of transportation at Central Garage for the school system. Excited to be here joining you. Uh this has been a very um eventful plan and in working to implement electric school buses in our district and I'm looking forward to collaborating hearing thoughts and just sharing um relative issues, concerns and how we can successfully implement electric school buses in our district. >> Thank you. Uh Director Matlock. >> Hello. Uh I'm Sean Matlock. I'm the director of the office of alternative infrastructure planning and development. Um, and we have been working with uh Dorothy and KA to
017try and uh green our infrastructure um in general and uh and in this case uh um uh transportation um as much as possible. We're looking to try and create more green infrastructure as we are doing in our school buildings which also include air quality um trying to make them better working environments and learning environments for our students and our teachers. And we're also trying to uh create uh cost-effective um means by which we can green all of our infrastructure. We we removed almost we're in our new schools. are removing fossil fuels from those buildings per the CCAP. And and this is our opportunity to try and create renewable energy sources for our and better air quality vehicles um in um for our for the program. And as part of that, we're we're trying to figure
018out how to fund that infrastructure and make it work in an effective way so that we can, you know, make it a systemwide improvement and not just to not limit it to certain geographical areas. So, I'm very excited about this process. I'm very excited to provide whatever information I can in relation there, too. >> Thank you, Director Matlock. Um, Miss Sheila Stevens. >> Good afternoon. I'm Sheila Stevens. I'm one of the program managers within the Department of Sustainability and Resilience. Um I am mainly responsible for overseeing three of our priorities for uh transportation priority four is one and then the other two of renewables and reducing the carbon footprint of our building. I also have um over two decades of in experience in uh environmental in the environmental field and it's funny that I started
019out as a scientist studying the actual biodegradation of hydrocarbon. So it's kind of funny that I'm kind of going back to that even though I've worn many hats uh most recently in the with in the energy sector or in that avenue but it's great to be here and I look forward to working with all of you. Thank you, Miss Stevens. And I think that is all for the PGCPS staff. Am I missing anyone? >> Yes, Mr. Fenton. >> Okay. Hello, I'm Seth Fenton. I'm sorry. Um, I'm an automotive foreman three with Central Garage Transportation. I've been a mechanic and supervisor for 21 years with Prince George's County Public Schools. Um, I'm also a certified automotive fleet manager. Um, I'm looking forward to working to, you know, improve this safety and quality for students and for
020the staff that works on the buses as well. So, I'm happy to be here. >> I guess that's it. Go ahead, board member. >> I was just going to say I see uh Timothy Sheepard on the screen as well. Let me put my camera on. >> Hi. Yeah. Um, I'm Tim I'm Tim Shepard. I'm the deputy program manager at MDE for the mobile sources control program. So, um, my responsibilities fall in implementing policies and programs to reduce emissions from the mobile sector. Uh, I've been an MD for several decades now. We do a lot of work with administering grants and working with the schools on electrifying the school buses. Uh, school buses has been a big interest for us because, you know, it represents a probably one of the largest fleets in the state right
021now. And because of the way they're housed and the way they run, they're perfect for electrification. And not only that, but, you know, they're primarily focused around a very sensitive population. So, you know, there's a lot of pluses for that. So, I look forward to helping and working with everyone. >> Yeah. Thank you so much. Um so I guess you know everyone could see that we have our primary stakeholders um uh in you know in the room we have our students, we have parents, we have our staff, we have our community advocates and um in the and you know our goal is that we all bring the experience from you know our various experience to uh support to supporting um positive next steps for the school system and in this case you know particularly around
022supporting director Baldwin's team uh in the electric school bus conversion. Um so I am now going to move to our presentation which is uh 4.2 2 PGCPS electric school bus policy planning and imple implementation overview 2021 through 2026. And the chair recognizes Dor uh Director Dorothy Morrison to provide um to take us through this presentation and call on each of the presenters. So I appreciate you doing that, Director Morrison. Thank you. >> Okay, sure. Um so I'll have um so Micah, do you have the presentation up? Yes, I'm pulling it up now. >> Okay, wonderful. Okay. So, like we all know, we're here for the electric school bus um modernization and electric school bus focus group, right? So, next slide. This is just a cover slide. Go ahead. Next slide, please. Okay. So, I'm taking
023this back to board member Booza. Oops. >> Thank you. I know that was a quick minute. Go. >> Yeah, you could go back. >> You want to go back? Yeah, there we go. So, board member Struts will start us off with some I guess historic background. >> Yeah. And so, you know, this is labeled uh 2021 through 2022, but there's a couple of touch points uh prior to that that are really critical in the in how we got to where we what we did by April 2021. Number one, that was um uh as Raone Palencia Calvo mentioned, the Chispa Clean Rights for Kids uh campaign that brought awareness to the fact that you know the Volt Volkswagen Corporation um had to pay big settlements to the to each of the states um after they were
024caught um you know around kind of like an emission scandal. So, so the how are these these funds that you know if there were emissions into the air, how could they be best you you know how could we spend those funds to reduce emissions? And so Chispa Maryland of the League of Conservation uh voters of Maryland uh realized that the um the best way that a really sweeping way to reach all the counties would be electric school buses. and Ramon uh in Prince George's County organized parents and also came to what I experienced was a elementary school PTO meeting and came to to share this with us and asked for us to support that Maryland would sp would use that money for on electric school buses. It wasn't a done deal. And so this advocacy
025started the the this vision of electric school buses which which you know I always admit felt very out of reach. Um and you know there really weren't even a lot of manufacturers you know like it was but I but the passion and the impact was just so clear. I got on board and um then you know I I was parent advocate to board of education member and in February of 2020 this is really just before the pandemic dis disruption the board of education had a budget hearing and at that hearing the message was just very clear. We had students from multiple high schools uh talking about uh the the impacts on their lives about climate change and really wanting uh PGCPS to acknowledge climate change and start to prepare them for a world of of
026uh climate change and also what they can do to mitigate. They were doing advocacy and green team work in their schools and community. The uh CHISPA uh also presented that night specifically on the benefits of electric school buses around climate change and health. And that was when the board the the board started to see, you know, this was a big challenge presented to us. We weren't really talking about it. There wasn't a plan. And that was when the idea of the this new policy in 8100, the focus work group was utilized. And then the um the work to lead to launching it did take about a year. Joseph Jakuda, a a PGCPS parent of the the Sierra Club climate parents advocacy work on clean energy schools teamed with me and then we grew we grew
027to the point of a committee and it's all archived at pgcps.org/climate. So, I won't go into too much detail about that year of work because you could see every meeting, every YouTube video, every synopsis that led to the final plan. And that was that was April 2022. And we were looking at the challenge of that school systems are responsible for 8% of carbon emissions. So, what did that mean for we're, you know, we were considered like the 20th largest at that time. I think we're now 18th. So, you know, two over 200 buildings and we already had a significant process, very strategic significant process going with the old infrastructure and what we needed to do to replace that old infrastructure that would be more modern and um possibly, you know, at the time, you know,
028considered, you know, we had like a lead silver goal if not higher. And you know, we were headed in the in that direction of of environmental stewardship through school construction. And that backlog meant more emissions like these old, you know, the inefficiencies in these old old buildings was a high environmental cost, but a high would was a high taxpayer cost. There's a lot of history on how we got to that point in time that um that that got us there that I I won't go into deep detail uh today, but there was a 20-year period where the state of Maryland did not fund any school construction for PGCPS. So, this wasn't just done out of like, you know, there you can't just look at super superintendent or the board. This was some very deliberate um
029uh decisions in politics around funding of PGCPS and in that e and the equity piece um you know th this was a part of that equity and this is a result of inequity and that that has driven all the work we we've done. Um the other aspect of what we were looking at is there was a needed to be ready around the state of Maryland and federal policy makers were actually moving on climate action. Senator Paul Pinsky had climate solutions now very big sweeping bill. So the the the policy makers in in Annapolis were actually having the big conversations and thinking of some solutions and individual bills that we could take advantage of. But were we ready? And that was one of the big pieces that I really appreciated our former superintendent Dr. Goldson uh
030when we we of course had to align to do all this work and agreement and that piece of it. um you know she you know she was very very much understood hey we're not going to be we're going to be leaders not followers we're not going to we're not going to be the last to get these state grants right and so that that that's some of the the staging of what happened to get us to April 2022 and then uh Mike if you could go to the next slide that when we reached um you know a plan we needed to we needed to have a clarity on our policies where we were headed and we decided to use the the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change as a guide. And so what you see here is
031what, you know, kind of our starting point in 2022 and we had year 2030 and 2040 goals around each of the elements of uh clean energy um and electricity, transportation and zero food waste and zero landfill waste. and the particularly those energy and electric bus pieces. Those were very clear guidelines that a lot of organizations that are in the advocacy world were adopting and beginning to get frameworks to help school districts. And uh by that, you know, soon around that time that that Volkswagen settlement money bought bought us our first bus. other counties in Maryland uh received those buses and uh we were able to solidly move forward on these transportation recommendations. And if you could go to the next slide, um this shows um the context of how we ended with eight priority areas
032with 58 total action items and transportation being the fourth. And I did want to take a moment to again um acknowledge student participation in the process. The the students on the work groups and we we had kind of a cut iterations because of graduations. We had different groups uh phenomenal contributors who also ultimately started to contribute to the the county's climate action plan. And so here is Nathan Gera who graduated from Oxen Hill High School. Um he and a team of students uh were were um you know you know great impact, great advocacy, awareness that we were doing this work and uh you know we you know we really valued the input of students and and continue to always keep in mind their curriculum um experience, their inschool uh like green teams and environmental um
033experiences throughout you know is deep deep in this plan in that partnership with the Schmidt center. Uh so next slide. And so priority drilling down to priority four committing the lowcarbon transportation. There are multiple multiple uh mitigation actions for the school system to take in here. And then but number the number one uh mitigation is electrify all buses by 2040. And this is where where our work is is headed. Um the um and then you could go to the next slide. And we re immediately realized that we needed partners in this planning. There were some organizations that were getting a step ahead on this expertise. There were school districts ahead of us in this process. There were school districts including Montgomery County right next door. Uh school districts in California. and we immediately said yes
034to invitations to join these opportunities to to learn and and to learn implementation pathways and um this work I would say this work has is extremely difficult and I think every school system ex experiences the difficulty differently but for us we have land open land challenges we again have the old, you know, electrical grid infrastructure, you know, where our bus lots are, um, or none, which we, which I learned. Um, so, three utility companies crossing this big huge county. And, uh, this was this was going to be very challenging work. And we went into it very excited, very, um, I think, you know, you know, thinking, well, if we get the buses, the getting the buses. There was funding moving for buses. We'll get these buses. We'll just put them in the same parking lot
035as as a diesel bus and everything will be great. Well, that is not that this this is so complicated compared to that. And so then we reached this point where I think next slide kind of gives us a transition here to talk about how administration has had to team up coordinate on some something so far reaching as an electric bus program because you're talking about land you're talking about energy you're talking about the possibilities of building you know bus to the building batteries storage like there's so much in there so I'm going to hand it over to Dorothy now to exp- explain how building of the department of sustainability and resilience can create is creating stability to be able to take on this massive project. >> Thank you board member. So we have the slide
036up. All right. Well, as the board member mentioned, you know, the climate action plan was was adopted by the board in 2022. And how, you know, how good is a plan without someone or a team to implement it, right? So um DSR which stands for the department of sustainability and resilience was um established in October um and that's actually the time I came on board but however the work really had started a year prior to that so it was sort of a a matter of handing the baton right so um department of sustainability and resilience um kicked off in October and again um we were established to um spearhead the implementation of CCAP and it's 58 action items. We are a very small office. We are only about six members um which includes myself, administrative
037assistant and and program managers and specialists and we are charged with um coordinating the activities districtwide um using uh the climate action plan obviously as a as a roadmap. Now our goal is very simple. We want to create a future ready school district that embraces sustainability practices for the health and well-being of our students, society, and the planet at large. Um, and we also want to create a system that's resilient to the impacts of a changing climate. The strategy, we take a holistic systems approach which involves um understanding the various elements of the school business. So that includes things like our central offices, our um academic operations and cycles. And what you see on the graphic here is just an illustration of some of the things we have to consider. So facilities planning really very
038early on when we're talking about schools. Where are they located? Um are they within um I guess walking distances? There's so much to consider when we we talk about facilities planning and the department of sustainability and resilience being a coordinating arm wants to and gets engaged early on um with the school system. There's design and construction, right? When we construct our school um buildings, we want to design them preferably to be close to lead um lead as as possible. So um we definitely have to consider sustainability factors um in the design and construction piece and once the schools are built um and we have obviously existing schools as the board member mentioned a lot of them have aging infrastructure. So for those that have aging infrastructure we have to work on sort of retrofitting um
039those buildings so they can you know be up to more um environ environmentally and sustainably um efficient. And so with regards to the new construction, we're making sure we're building them in a sustainable way. And a lot of them, and you'll hear probably more from um director Matlock, a lot of those schools are being built um being solar ready and EV charging ready. So that's that's a that's a good thing. Um, and then we also obviously have to monitor what we're doing and figure out what we did right, what we did wrong, and you know, just try to um, level set and improve. Let me see what else. I'm going to skip this one. We have to, as we take a holistic approach, um, we determine and we communicate how applicable the various CCAP action
040items are to the different departments within the school system. So um again if you look at the diagram here we have departments like whether it's purchasing whether it's capital programs um whether it's food services I mean all these uh divisions have some impact on sustainability and our climate action plan and then we look at the school side right so the learning piece of it the learning cycles having our K through 12 um students we're trying to educate them really really early on in the way we develop our curriculum We want to give them outdoor experiences so they embrace sustainability and the environment very early on as well. And we're also looking at climate readiness, right? So working with, you know, our various partners to provide internships opportunities for our students to have them um be
041interested in things like um sustainability, solar installations. There's so much you could do, so many different um I guess fields of study that help to further sustainability. So whether you want to be a botonist or a zoologologist, I mean there's the list goes on and on. And so what we're trying to do is to kind of create that career path as well. So working closely on the academic side. So what this shows is that it's really a systemic a systemic approach, right? There's like this these two systems kind of parallel the academics, the operations side, but you know, holistically we're trying to address all of that. Um in terms of um actually executing the actual functions, we have established various work groups for each priority area and these meet on a regular cadence to help
042sort of um I guess plan execute the various um action items that are stated in the action plan and I don't know if I provided a link to the um climate action plan but that's available on our website as well. We have quarterly meetings that bring together uh the groups of all the different um work groups. So we have eight priority areas and we have eight eight uh priority work groups. And so those meet on a quarterly meeting on a quarterly basis to share uh status updates and progress in each of the various priority areas. We also have established um an ad hoc committee which is chaired by our very own board members and it consists of a diverse set of um interest groups, students, staff, external partners and experts and other board members. This
043body meets on a bimonthly basis to sort of review what's going on to advise and support the implementation effort. We also collaborate with external partners like MDE. and we have um Tim Shepard on there to leverage resources. Um we also work with the Maryland Energy Administration who has been, you know, a phenomenal uh funer to help support our efforts and we um you know have been able to really secure a lot of grant funding. Um I think in the neighborhood in the last two years in the neighborhood of 10 to 15 million um in grant funding. So we're very very appreciative of that. We also try to um engage legislatively as needed to further climate action. And when it comes to just just being accountable, right? We want to be accountable and transparent, we have
044identified key performance indicators um that are being incorporated into our 5-year strategic planning, the PGCPS 5-year strategic plan. Um we also publish by annual reports to publicly share our implementation progress. We host annual leadership summits um that again multistakeholders folks from government um national stakeholders and we meet an opportunity to meet reflect learn and share experiences with other leas um that's usually in the vicinity of 50 to 100 folks that attend that those annual uh workshops. So with that I'll stop here on a brief introduction of what the department of um sustainability and resilience charges and I will let's go on to the next slide. Uh Micah and I don't I'm not sure if we may have already touched on this right board member. Yeah, I could I could just take a moment on um
045you know that you know as by 2024 we were you know celebrating our first electric school buses were on the road and we did receive um various grants that that paid for those buses. And um but then uh we had found in 2025 became a year of new challenges around the federal funding streams as well as um a project plan that will be will be reviewed um um during this presentation that we were very optimistic about but ran into ran into the challenges and in many ways it each of the challenges are where we repeat kind over and over throughout the county. So it was a lot of lessons. There's a lot of lessons learned and um but we had to we had to choose in this moment to be um you know resilient, optimistic
046that even though this is a setback and sort of our assumed timing on the on the road to 20 the year 2040 um we you know we just kind of accept where we are and we go back to the drawing board and we're we're just going going to we're going to look at things with more clarity and knowledge from all of our peer districts around the nation and we're going to get back to it and keep it a priority. And but it just was so these were just totally random tweets, you know, from our our uh school-based staff who manage, you know, bus pickup and drop off and and you know, they were such a it was, you know, for me it just, you know, when I came across them, it just felt so amazing,
047you know, to just hear this organic feedback from our our schoolbased leaders um managing buses. about what they you know what they thought about the electric bus. So we're going to hold on to that and um you know just keep moving forward but um so so uh I think Dorothy I think you're going to introduce Director Baldwin now. >> Correct. Yeah. So now we um we're going to next slide Micah. Okay. Okay, so now we're going to get into the details of I guess where we stand with regards to our transportation policy planning and our challenges as well because we do have them. So with that, I'm going to um ask Director Baldwin to >> Thank you. >> Roll with it. >> Good evening again, everyone. Uh this has been a a good history lesson
048for me because I was not on board prior to se um 2023 and so understanding where where it all began is important for me. So I'm going to chime in uh as to when I stepped into the role and was briefed about our electrification plan for school bus um implementation. So, this is going to be a quick overview and you can go to the next slide for me, Micah. Uh it all really started with our contractor, our not contractor but our consultant JLL um as they had been partnering with the um Sean Matlock's team to designate a facility that would be our um electric charging station and it was chosen to be Mullikin bus light. At the time we had a goal. We wanted to put a 100 electric buses there with 100 plus charging
049stations, a full deployment of a solar canopy. um it was going to be the works and JLL primarily provided the landscape the back the content um the assessment in which we do have an assessment for each of our 12 bus lots currently as to the um how or how efficient it is would it would be to have an electric infrastructure at each of the 12 bus lines from that standpoint. uh but then we needed a charge. So what we had to do is understand the abilities of our facilities. Uh we had the buses but we did not have the infrastructure per se. There was a uh what I call a stop gap measure of the infrastructure meaning the charging stations. Uh we purchased four mobile charging trailers. uh one trailer trailer was a level three
050and the other three trailers were level twos with u seven dispensers uh in which we were able to kind of start that process a little bit. It was a little challenging of getting the trailers because the the power source for the trailer was a propane engine um to power the trailer in order to power the buses. And so we had to find locations for that in place. So uh but what I wanted to do is give you we created a game plan um and you can go to the next slide for me based upon WRI which is the world resource institute. We used um items from their playbook and this was a road map that they set forth that was useful for us. And those five things here, the foundation settings, the charging infrastructure, operational
051planning, procurement, installation, training, test and deployment, performance, benefits and scaling were all uh roadmap components, objectives that we could utilize in driving our plan, our implementation plan. Next slide. And so we took this on and we started building our team and it really became an inclusive team between the consultants JL the um alternative sites Shan Malac's group my group and the energy group at the time and Dorothy's group at the time to really have these discussions about where we're headed. Uh because the most important part that we had to do is really add the infrastructure. Um and and throughout this whole process right now the biggest part is uh securing the infrastructure. The easiest part is securing the buses throughout this process. So we had this process in place and we wanted to build and
052educate our team, engage all the proper stakeholders, find the research and for funding financing and then create this roadmap. Next slide. And so with each of that we started with the charging infrastructure and operations planning. So we were able to conduct a facility assessment. We developed a charging infrastructure plan. Uh and then we developed the operational plan. And so as that as these things were confirmed uh this was actually aligning with the Mullikin project. Ultimately we already knew the buses. We were gathering a strategy to uh replace you know how we were going to replace diesel for electric because it wouldn't be in one fell swoop. So we have a continuation plan over the next several years of how many uh diesel buses could be swapped out for electric buses from that standpoint. And so
053we engaged in that planning. Um still kind of are engaging in that planning. Next slide. So then we talked about the procurement and installation which again we said procuring the buses are very easy. It's everything else that matters. And so with the installation plan and we were discussing with the Mullikin project, this was involving our energy um partners, utility companies, the builder, the architect that was going to build the site or retrofit the site for electric all took place and we had weekly discussions making sure the alignment was in place. if there were issues from the building, from the utility companies, we were all meeting to engage in that and and that was successful. We were headed on the path. Um there were hiccups along the way and I'm going to let uh director Matt
054Lock talk more about that u when he's up, but we we we had a good plan. All right, next slide. And let's skip this slide. and skip this slide. We just go to the road map. And so we we created this road map, this visual that we could use uh for the 24 school year to tell you where where where we were, where our plans were uh for each of those five components for the road map. And we pretty much hit all of those except for the training and deployment and deployments feedback and scaling because we pretty much stopped at the procurement and installation stage. Um and and that's kind of where we what the plan was and we were following that plan. Um, but we had to hiccups happened with the Mullikin project and
055we've had to come back and kind of like punt and regroup a little bit and devise a new plan um and and restructured how we were going to place the location for um the electric buses and and make sure that site infrastructure was uh managed and could be successful at those locations. Um we're still looking you know we have our specs for the design of the electric bus. Um it is really now working on the routing system because what uh in terms of routing and making sure that we can utilize the bus in terms of uh being able to you utilize the bus in the morning, bring it back for a midday charge and then have it go back out for PM. That was the task. and and in order to do that, we have
056to build a route to accommodate the charging side of it. And um part of the barriers to that was this little thing of a bus driver shortage that we had. Uh that really kind of prevented us from building routes of that nature because with the shortage of drivers, that meant drivers had to do more with their buses. uh that that required them to use more fuel and be on the road longer and and that time was longer than the charge of a bus. And so uh we experimented, we tried to make that work. Uh but you know what ended up happen truthfully is that we used the bus in the morning uh with the until the charge you know we ran the charge low and we put that bus on the charger and then we
057took another electric bus and ran the same route in the afternoon um while the other bus was charging and we did that for a while um but that wasn't efficient and so we want to build a more efficient model to get a good return on investment of the use of the bus so we maximize And so that's kind of where we are now and just building the routes and making sure that we can support it as well as building the infrastructure from that standpoint. So I like where we are. We have some measures in place. Uh I think it has allowed us to really step back and see other districts and how they have operated electric buses. Uh because a lot of folks that we talked to were doing it just that way. They had
058a they had a driver with two buses. they drove their electric bus in the morning and a diesel bus in the afternoon because they the charge was so low that they couldn't use it again. Um and that and we know that wasn't conducive for for planning. And so uh we we're still working it out. It is still in the forefront for us in in planning and we're hoping that we can roll out more electric buses next school year. Um, again with that whole purpose of of we want to be clean. We want to make sure that we're putting them in the areas where we can know have a known effect. Uh, we have identified certain areas within the Maryland um environmental justice screening tool that we have utilized and so we kind of know where
059our hot spots are and that's where the second part part of this we're putting our buses uh the plan is to put those buses in those areas follow suit from there. And so um that's it in a quick hit moment history to where we are, you know, to where we were to where we are right now. Kind of um how are we getting there is still the planning communication um on a weekly basis. We still meet on a weekly basis to discuss this process. We have a new location plan. We have an RFP out uh and and I'm hoping that we will have uh confirmed site plans pretty soon that we can start that process and be able to implement a full service electric school bus plan in the future years. >> All right. >>
060Awesome. Thank you, Director Baldwin. So just just so you all know um we will have um I guess the discussion at the end which board member bus will facilitate but before that there's two more items two more presenters um we've heard about obviously you know acquiring the buses the charging infrastructure there's another piece to all of this which is the utility right the inner connection so with that um I'm going to invite um Miss Sheila Stevens to just um help us understand what's involved with um the utility side of things in terms of building um the the electric charging infrastructure. >> Sheila, >> yeah, thank thank you very much. Um >> we have the next slide. >> Yeah. So, in order for us to have any of our clean energy technologies energized or placed into
061service, we're very reliant on the utility to provide either the new service or a heavy upgraded service to an existing meter, which is typically the case um uh for for right now with our plan. Um, and as you can see, there's it becomes a very lengthy process. It may not appear. So when you look at this visual, it says a minimum window of 60 days. But the problem becomes the in between each of these steps when it when the ball is in another court and you're relying on that uh those players to respond in a in a quick manner and often it's no one's uh fault. It's just finding the information that may have been may be missing. Uh so this two-month minimum window often turns into several months. So that often is difficult when
062we're trying to plan um design uh the bidding process uh and just timing up everything perfectly so that we're not just waiting um because obviously wasted time is is wasted dollars. Uh so but then the whole I think one of the uh conversations that everyone's been aware of is that in order for us to continue with this electrification drive um to push more clean energy technologies the question becomes you know is our grid resilient enough or um is it beefed up enough or however you want to say it to handle all of that. Uh, but I did want to share with you there is a recent bill that was passed in went into effect of October of that is basically tasking um all of our utility companies. It's over being overseen by the Maryland Public
063Service Commission to um accelerate grid resiliency. Um and they are also going to be providing incentives for owners um and end us end users who have any type of capability of of selling uh deers distributed energy resources. So whether it's battery backup power, whether it's solar, um whether it's vehicle to grid charging, uh the utility companies in the state is recognizing that that is a deficit and a downfall to our goal that's rapidly, you know, moving, but we still have the issue of the infrastructure. Uh but that's exciting to know that the utilities are being tasked with coming up with uh time of use rates that are going to be very appealing for us to uh charge your charging your vehicle fleet or whatever it might be um in off peak hours and getting locked
064in at lower rates. So the goals um are there. the state recognizes that there is there are issues with the infrastructure and so it looks like they're they're trying to really provide uh a clearer and more um paved path for us spec specifically districts like us or end users like us who have this great vision um and see uh what our role is and how it can benefit our climate. Um that's all I have. Um if you want to go to the next slide and Dorothy. >> Sure. Yeah. Thank you so much um Miss Stevens. So now um we are going to invite director Matt Lock to help us understand the cost of ownership when it comes to um acquiring these electric school buses and also the coordination that has to occur between um uh
065our official capital program CIP program and our P3 which stands for public private partnership um program when we're developing these electric charging infrastructure. Um, so Director Matlock. >> Oh, well, thank you for all for being here and for your commitment to this this this program and this this effort. So, um, I want to just walk back a little bit. So, um, our original plan for Mullikin was very ambitious. So, what our plan was originally was to uh build a uh a a bus lot that could fund or fuel roughly between 90 and 100 electric school buses using uh a solar power canopy um with um gas generator backups uh and a big um battery storage system that would enable us to do all that. and we had a really uh we had a model that
066we were looking at and we were going to try and replicate that model. However, um there were some changes that happened. So all that a a lot of these models are built on financing and the financing for these uh a lot of what we were planning to do was also built on federal funding. Um there are a lot of tax rebates. Um there were a lot of um um u subsidies that were being provided by the federal government that um were outside of what was being provided or in addition to what was being provided by the state. uh when uh our new administration came into office uh at the federal level, um there was uh a lot of those subsidies, a lot of those benefits went away. And uh as we were often saying, sometimes
067the math don't math. And then in this case, uh, we couldn't make the projects pencil out so that the provider would still be making a profit off of what they were providing to us and at a at a at a price that still met what our goals had been. Now, originally, we did a uh electric versus diesel school bus analysis. And so, the big rate limiting step for school buses are the cost of the buses themselves. So the average cost of a diesel bus just you know and I'm going to ballpark this a little bit for us is roughly about $100,000. So that's what a diesel bus usually runs. The cost the life cycle for the fuel for a bus like that is also around $100,000. the OAM costs are uh is roughly about $70,000
068and and there's a residual value of the bus which is roughly around $20,000 after the end. Now, when you take all that in and we're replacing roughly about a 100 buses a year, that means that you're spending roughly about $10 million on buses themselves. And then you have a a life cycle cost that runs out. And an electric school bus costs around $350,000 a year uh per bus uh with a life cycle cost which is much lower of $20,000 and a life for the fuel and then a life cycle on&m cost of roughly around $60,000. So when you add it all up, um the thing that makes school electric school buses a little bit more costly to operate over the entire life by about $130,000 is the actual upfront cost of the bus. So if
069you can So what we were looking at were subsidies of from the federal government that lowered the cost of that bus down to roughly the same price of a diesel bus which then eliminated that and made it even more cost effective to go at electric buses. But that cost uh the initial infrastructure cost of the bus themselves created some issues and we didn't know that we could get as many buses which then made the overall infrastructure cost higher per bus and then when we tried to reduce the size of the bus lot it made it not pencil out from a financial standpoint. Now that being said, as I pointed out, the overall cost of operating a plus uh on a regular as opposed to an electric bus, electric bus and a diesel bus, the electric
070bus is much cheaper. So what we've decided to do was instead of trying to create a micro grid system, we've decided to go with a a grid provided that is buying energy from the grid in order to um finance the buses. Um and so that means that you bring it in from BG& or Pepco whomever the provider may be and then you provide the electricity there. Now, right now, we have roughly about 20 or buses. We're going to build out uh infrastructure currently at two different sites that would then f be able to provide uh um for 40 buses to start. And as long as we can get the buses, the infrastructure kind of pencils out as long as we're not doing too much along that along those lines. Now, where this gets where capital
071and P3 come into play is in building out that infrastructure. So when you're thinking about an electric bus versus a diesel bus, an electric bus is much heavier. So the pad for that bus needs to be heavier. The pad for the garage where that bus is maintained and repaired has to be heavier. You need heavier, more powerful lifts because the buses are heavier and you need different types of infrastructure to support that bus. In addition, you need the heavy ups and connections to provide more electricity to those sites so that those buses can be charged on the chargers that you want to install for those buses. And that requires both permitting uh at various levels both for the construction of those things and for bringing the power in. And then you also have to have
072an agreement with the the with the um uh the organizations the the utilities in order to provide that electricity which is an increase uh over what you currently have. Um this is where we we have to have a project manager. It involves a lot of procurement along those lines and and also the engineering and the construction support for all that because you have to build in that infrastructure. Um, right now what we're doing is as pointed out we do have a uh a a a RFP out. We I think we've we had 15 providers who showed interest. Um we did walkthroughs for all that. We have a project manager assigned for these first two bus lots and we're working to to build out that infrastructure, but the infrastructure that we're building out right now is
073closer in. Uh it supports shorter routes um and and that's what we're working on. The big thing is is that you it requires us to get subsidies from both the state um in order to build in order to buy the buses because of the upfront cost being so much more. We basically have to triple our purchasing uh budget because you have to place 100 buses every year um because um school buses only have a 13-year useful life um by state law. So every 13 every once a bus reaches its 13th year, you have to replace it. We have roughly 1500 buses and that works out to roughly about 100 110 buses per year that we have to repurchase. So that that's a recurring cost and that has to be made up on uh in relation
074to that and the only way we've been able to do that under the current budget circumstances is with uh subsidies from the state government. And that's that there's the money is there, but now we have to build out the infrastructure so that when we get the buses in, we can actually use them because we can't afford to have those buses sit while this is all going on. And so we're trying to have the infrastructure match up with that. Now, there are some other things that we're looking at uh beyond just electric school buses. What we want to do is get to a point where we can use renewable fuels and have lower emissions. There are other ways to achieve that beyond electric buses. Um, one of them could be renewable propane buses, which is another
075technology that we're looking at that has that we're also thinking about building infrastructure for that, which will also lower emissions, but also be a renewable energy source that we could use um, in order to power our buses. So, we're looking at various alternatives and infrastructure that matches up. In the case of propane buses, their their their price for replacement is relatively close to diesel buses and in some cases it could be cheaper. And we also need to make sure we have the resources for getting that is that the school bus companies are building the buses that we need and that we can get them in from a um from a um basically a supply chain basis to replace the buses that we're currently getting. And they have to have all that in place so we
076can do those things as well. So, we're working through it. We may our our overall plan is to have multiple providers of both the infrastructure and of the buses so that we have a regular train that can be built out and expanded throughout the entire school system. The goal is to have a renewable infrastructure that supports the entire system in the way than the way that we're currently structuring transportation and also to have it in a way that meets the supply chain needs that we have in order to make those 100 bus per year replacements and have the infrastructure in place to support those new buses as they come off the line. So, it's a long-term plan and requires us also to be thinking about where we put the buses and how we can structure
077schools themselves so that we have more walkable buses, more walkable sites so that we need less buses and so that we can concentrate those areas um and also have shorter bus routes so that we can support those things. So, our planning department is quite involved in uh where we're building schools, how we create walk zones, and that sort of thing. And also, one of the other things that we may end up doing at some point is also providing more infrastructure for renewables at the sites where the buses uh drop off and that sort of stuff. So, when they're idling or they're waiting to do stuff, they're more on site and they can be utilized in that way. So the infrastructure plan is is is large because we have to have the partnership with the utilities
078in order to provide that energy and we also have to have um various resources or various um solutions so that we can deal with the the bus routes that we actually have and also the bus routes that we're trying to develop that support these various renewable energy source buses and low emission buses. And so that's that's generally what we're working through right now. And if you go back to Sheila's um little uh slide that was showing how we go from site engineers on site uh all the way to that that two-month period. One of the things that really shakes that up is the permitting process because we have to go through deep. we have to go through the various utilities um and all their all the permitting um partnerships that we have in order to
079get these the construction approved. And a lot of times that's where your hang-up is. To give you an example along with the supply chain for the equipment, which in some cases could be as long as um you know a year to two years to get it lined up and then also uh permitting for all that work. that adds time to the projects. So it's supply chain for the infrastructure pieces and also for for instance a heavy up could be as much as 6 months to get a heavy up for a a site. Um the chargers take roughly about 6 months to a year to get those on site because you have to use Americanmade chargers in order to get the subsidies that we need to support the construction of those things. And then the engineering
080of the electrical system and the construction of those pads and that stuff all has to meet thing has to meet the the environmental requirements the construction requirements and all those other things. So you go through multiple permitting things and that can take a year in and of itself. So those are the things that uh create those um issues in between the various uh points between design and permitting and construction. And so we're working through all that and we're building uh what I will call a um a uh a set of plans or a a set of processes that we can replicate on a regular basis. And that requires a little bit of time, but eventually our hope is that we'll have an annual set of processes in place where we we're where where this becomes
081more of a domino rather than something we have to recreate every time we do it. So, we're working through that right now. And it's uh it's a process, but it's a process that we're engaged in. And I want to point out that this is something that has been fully supported by the senior members of our administration. Um when the CCAP was first created, I was on the workg group uh when we put to get this together and when Dr. Goolson was our superintendent, uh she actually chaired some of the the monthly meetings until um Dorothy's department was created and Dorothy came on. So this was something that was led specifically by the superintendents including superintendent house and I'm sure and super and uh superintendent Joseph have all been very much involved in what we've been
082doing um with the they they lead the annual reports um formation and they're very much involved in what we're doing and they're often very interested in what we're doing on a regular basis and they've led the charge on this matter and I would say the entire administration from the from the purchasing department all the way through to the people on the ground trying to get the work done have been very much involved and very supportive and have made it possible for us to move as far as we have so far. >> Very good point. Thank you so much director um Matlock. Very informative. So now I'm going to turn it over again to um board member Booza to um I guess lead the discussion and and close out. Yeah, sure. Um, yeah, we definitely have
083time for some questions. I did just want to give a little overview of um what's next and um thank you to all the presenters because you gave us a little bit of a beginning to think about where we're headed. So, um particularly um Director Baldwin and uh Director Matlock the that we have um this our next meeting you'll see a lot you'll see a lot more visual of what you just heard in brief like where these two our first two uh charging locations will be located. What does that look like on the county map when we're talking about the environmental justice mapping that director Baldwin talked about these priority areas and the land that we have? So, we'll we'll look at a lot of what what does this look like when you look at the
084county and we'll also look at, you know, Director Matlock, you started mentioning things that I I didn't know about these heavier pads and all that stuff. You know, we'll try to bring we're going to bring next meeting our goals to show more visual around what a bus lot looks like today and what it should look like. And a piece of this and this is where board member Olivo and I really connected on is around the bus lot modernization for all of our bus driver and bus manager employees. they are not in in modern facilities that not all of the not all the bus lots even have shelters for the buses while the maintenance team works on them. And so we wanted to bring in some vision around how when we invest in this piece of
085the work, we want to invest in our employees and their working conditions. So that's the piece that board member Olivo and I connected on and wanted to bring into this. So our next meeting will be more around this mapping and visuals and if we have time get into how you optimize an electric bus route and so so I wanted to leave with that in case you have a bunch of questions in that that aspect of the presentation you definitely be able to next month you'll be able to ask all those questions but for this overall presentation I you know any immediate questions we still have some time so go ahead and raise your hand and and we could go through some questions. >> All right. >> I just I just wanted to say one thing.
086I ironically uh I have a solar uh energy meeting I have to go to in about 10 minutes. So I if you have any questions for me, uh hit me early. >> Actually, Sean, we're all in that meeting with Superintendent. >> Oh, excellent. Okay, solar's up next. So, any any any questions for today or is everyone Oh, all right, Kate, go for it. >> I'm sorry. I'm hopefully Well, this will be short and thank you so much for providing those presentations. I feel much more knowledgeable now, so I appreciate that so much. And I I just want to call out my appreciation for a focus on equity and using the Maryland EJ screening tool, especially since that integrates um health components as well. Also wanted to lift that up to say thank you. Um, something
087I wanted to ask that could be answered now or just thought about and further discussion in the future is um I heard a presenter and I'm sorry I forget which one um talk about creating like um encouraging walking school buses and you know this will take a long while to get there for the entire school district and um I didn't like my mind is blown with how many details I now have in there but wondering how can we support parents or our students students to really think about their environments as we are working toward electrifying our school buses. What are other ways that we can support them in other transportation modes that will also um really work to addressing climate? >> And and who would you like to to take that one on? >> I'm
088I apologize. I don't remember who mentioned the walking school bus or like walkable environments. So, whomever mentioned that or has already responded would be great. >> So, one of the things that we're trying to do is uh you may notice that we're consolidating our schools to some degree. We're building bigger schools that consolidate more schools into into more centralized locations. Around that, you want to have a larger walk zone, as much as a a walk zone as you can. One of the problems we have with walk zones right now is we don't have enough sidewalks. That's something the county could actually build out. You know, they could be building more side walkable areas for our kids and and and as you may notice at all of our our locations, we have um bicycle uh racks,
089but we don't have a lot of kids cycling to school. So, you know, you know, um bicycle, uh ride routes, u lanes so that kids could actually safely ride their bicycles to school. Um and more importantly what we have to do is we have to be planning out now they're working through the EFMP now um for and as you can see and those will be determining where the next schools are how those schools are organized where they're located how much consolidation happens and if we can consolidate them around um more walkable areas that's something that we that would help uh alleviate the um some issues related to transportation and also emissions. Yeah. >> Yeah. Great. And I'll just quickly add that as part of the climate change action plan when we do this section, we
090talk a lot about um you know the walk to school days, the Ruby Bridges walk to school day. Um the our high school students are working with Washington Area Bicyclist Association on walk audits and um council members um Fiser and uh Olsen led a school pedestrian task force two summers ago with recommendations that need advocacy and oversight and collaboration. And we have two safe passages coordinators who collaborate through our security team with the county department of um transport transportation um in ways that until you know prior to two years ago. that kind of monthly collaboration talking about walker safety is it's quite new like for the system in the county and it actually made it into the county's new transportation plan that's under public comment now. So supporting putting in uh comments to public comment
091on the transportation plan to emphasize the PGCPS uh experience um is an immediate thing that parents can do and we could continue to discuss that outside of the meeting. Um I'm going to go to Ramon uh for his question. >> Thank you. Um so thank you so much for the presentation. I also have learned quite a bit uh throughout all the presentations. So that that was great and um and commend you on the troubleshooting all those issues that came up electrifying uh uh your bus fleet. Um I completely um understand what a transition is from something that has been done for decades and decades uh diesel buses to a new technology and all the challenges identify and troubleshoot. So thank you so much for sharing some of that. Um, one question that I have is
092about the alternative fuels. You I think that you mentioned propane and I I think I said it before. It's not very clear to me what is the approach there? How is how does the school envision reducing carbon emissions from propane buses specific especially for childrens. My understanding using federal tools is that the the output the tailpipe emissions are the same or even greater than diesel buses. So yeah, just if you can explain um share a little bit more about that that um where you guys uh where is the school district thinking about about that approach? But again, thank you so much for such a great presentation. >> Thank you for that question. So we are um we are exploring how propane could be used in the system. uh we are basically doing a a road
093map similar to what we're doing with electric and investigating and so we hope to be able to share with you um a comparison between the diesel um and propane. We know that propane is not zero emissions u but we know that the emissions what we're sharing so far are better than what the diesel output is. And so we want to be able to bring this to the group to be able to share um in terms of planning wise we want to be more um more more efficient. And so if it is successful where emissions are less with propane than diesel then that might serve as a gap measure because bringing in the electrification side is much more harder than it would be bringing in a propane side. And we know that right now we in
094targeted areas the electric school bus will be great but it's not total for the entire district. And so we want to be able to offer solutions for the district in all areas um that we are meeting in which we are still meeting the climate action plan objectives. Okay. Yeah. So, we're going to bring in I'm hoping at one of our future meetings, I'll be able to bring in some folks from the propane industry and to be able to share good facts with everyone. >> Thank you. >> Great. Well, thank you all so much. Thank you for the the discussion. We are now at 458 and knowing that we have this very important solar meeting coming up at 5 for our team uh that we definitely want them in on. So, I'm going to uh just
095once again thank thank you to all of our presenters for for preparing all this great historic last five years information to get us started on our on our work. Um I'm going to move to aerour 6.0 adjourn 6.1 next steps. The um let's see here. The chair informs the public that the next electric school bus and bus lot modernization focus workg group meeting will be held on April 22nd, 2026. Uh please continue to check the PGCPS board web page for more information and updates. And there being no further business, the time is now 4:59 p.m. and the March 25th, 2026 electric school bus and bus lot modernization focus workg groupoup meeting is adjourned. Thank you all so much and have a great night. >> Thank you everyone. >> Thank you. >> Thanks everyone. Good night.
096>> Thank you.