• Help school districts to plan for deployment including identification of appropriate routes
• Engage stakeholders to build awareness of electric school buses and educate them about the partnerships and activities needed to support deployment
• Staff training to support operations and collect data on vehicle performance
• Data and data analysis to support evaluation of the project

Request for Qualifications

Virginia Clean Cities is each seeking qualifications from prospective School Partners. This Request for Qualifications (RFQ) is intended to determine basic eligibility and level of commitment in order to select School Partners. Recognizing that this technology will be new to many potential applicants, Virginia Clean Cities coordinators are available to support you through this process.

Submission Details

Interested candidates should respond to the following questions in the MEEP Short-Term Demonstration RFQ application.

Benefits of Electric School Buses

Protect the Health of Children

Improve Local Air Quality

Achieve Sustainability Goals

Reduce Operating Costs

There are close to a half of a million school buses on the road today, the vast majority of which are diesel buses that spew toxic tailpipe emissions that negatively effect the millions of children riding them and the communities they operate in. One apparent solution to this problem is to switch to clean, zero tailpipe emission, electric school buses.

Electric school buses are an exciting tool for school districts to implement as they protect the health of children, improve local air quality, help achieve sustainability goals, and reduce operating costs!

Additionally, they are now being offered by every major North American school bus manufacturer, and orders and deployments are increasing around the country. 

Current Electric School Buses in Virginia

Electric School Bus Training Connections

Full slate of training videos:

Learn the basics about electric school buses with our Electric School Bus Training Connections Series! In these videos, we review the ins and outs of a Jouley electric school bus and highlight some of the differences between traditional diesel school buses and electric school buses.

Learn more about the Thomas Built Jouley Electric Bus here!

On June 14th, 2022 the Mid-Atlantic Electric School Experience Project (MEEP) hosted an informational webinar on what to consider when preparing for electric school buses. With an influx of funding opportunities for electric school buses, it is our goal to make sure that folks are up to speed as they begin to consider electrifying their school bus fleet.

On November 4th, 2021 the Virginia Department of Education hosted numerous experts for a virtual Virginia School Bus Charging Assessment Workshop. The workshop provided a ton of resources on assessing charging infrastructure needs for electric school buses. The workshop featured the following speakers:

• Benjamin Lake from VEIC 
• Cliff Fietzek from In-Charge 
• Caley Edgerly from Sonny Merryman 
• Albert Burleigh from Blue Bird 
• Fargo Hall from Nuvve

Community support can provide the push that many school districts need to make the transition to electric. Such was the case when Miami 6th grader, Holly Thorpe, used her science fair project to influence her local school district’s decision to begin transitioning to EV buses. The 6th grader’s experiment was focused on measuring the CO2 levels in and around idling school buses as they waited to pick children up at the end of the day.

It wasn’t just Holly who garnered all of this support. Michele Drucker, a parent of another child at Holly’s school and lawyer, took an interest in the project. The combination of the excitement created by Holly’s science experiment among students and parents and Ms. Druckers’ experience in organizing and sustainability created the perfect opportunity to turn the data from Holly’s school project into actual results. They with Holly’s data to get backing from 4 key groups, parents, students, bus drivers, and community members. With the support of these groups, they convinced the school district to look into the VW Settlement fund to purchase the district’s first EV buses.

The combination of the excitement created by Holly’s science experiment among students and parents and Ms. Druckers’ experience in organizing and sustainability created the perfect opportunity to turn the data from Holly’s school project into actual results. While Holly’s project was not very technologically complex, it was easy to communicate and the results demonstrated real impacts on the students’ and drivers’ health and wellbeing. This got peoples’ attention.

EPA DERA School Bus Rebate Program

EPA- Diesel Emissions Reduction Act of 2021

The Diesel Emissions Reduction Act of 2010 allows EPA to offer rebates to reduce harmful emissions from older, dirtier diesel vehicles. Typically opened in the fall, this program offers a lottery rebate for vehicle replacements. In the past, this porgram has supplied up to $65,000 per bus to go towards an battery-electric replacement. This program does have a scrappage requirement, in an effort to reduce emissions produced by old dirty diesel engines. 

EPA Clean School Bus Program

EPA- Bipartisan Infrastructure Law 

Following the passage of the historic Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the EPA is offering a total of $5 billion between fiscal years 2022 and 2026 to fund the replacement of existing school buses with low- or zero-emission school buses. Each year, $500 million will be available exclusively for electric school buses and $500 million will be available for electric buses and multiple types of cleaner alternative fuel school buses. The first round of funding for the EPA Clean School bus Program has closed, the second round is expected to open in 2023.

For more info please contact:

Sarah Stalcup-Jones

Virginia Clean Cities

Research and Heavy-Duty Vehicle Programs Manager and Chief Equity Officer

sstalcupjones@vacleancities.org

(540) 212-4143