Woodstock School District 200 buys pair of gas-powered buses after electric vehicles fall through

Woodstock School District 200 has bought a pair of used gas-powered buses, just months after the school board approved the purchase of a trio of electric buses that later fell through.

The school board signed off on the gas-powered bus acquisition Tuesday evening, and district officials said the buses would replace aging ones in the district’s fleet.

The cost for the school buses was $142,630, and officials expect the vehicles will be delivered by the end of July, according to district documents.

Just more than half of the district’s 96-bus fleet is at least 10 years old, according to district documents, and older buses “typically require extensive repairs to pass IDOT inspections.”

Last fall, the school board signed off on buying three electric buses from Lion Electric with the help of grant funding.

But Lion Electric shut down operations at its Joliet-area plant in December. District spokesperson Kevin Lyons said the electric buses were never delivered and the district never paid for them.

In addition to the purchase of the electric buses, the district had planned to go to bid for about $130,000 of electrical and site work to accommodate the buses.

Lyons said Tuesday’s purchase of the gas-powered buses wasn’t related to the thwarted electric buses purchase but that the district tries to “rejuvenate” its aging bus fleet each year as budget constraints permit.

District 200 has tried other green energy initiatives, including installing a solar farm at Woodstock North High School. Lyons said the school board and district administrators are always looking for clean energy solutions.

“Electric buses have certainly been part of those discussions, but we’ve learned that, unfortunately, the infrastructure for electric buses isn’t where we hoped it would be,” Lyons said.

District 200 wasn’t the only district that had planned to buy Lion Electric buses. Huntley School District 158 also placed an order with Lion Electric but switched suppliers in January after the company shut down its operations.