Centennial State News

Colorado Gov. Jared Polis is touting the transition of school buses to electric as his Republican challenger in the Tuesday, Nov. 8 general election criticizes his priorities.

Polis estimated that it would take five to six years for the “majority” of the state's buses to be replaced with electric models, Colorado Newsline reported.

Polis signed the clean-air Senate Bill 22-193 into law earlier this year, allocating $65 million in grants to school districts to help them transition to electric school buses, Colorado Newsline reported. Electric buses cost approximately $375,000 per vehicle, but KC Becker, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency’s Region 8 headquarters in Denver, said the cost of the buses will decrease as the program grows.

“So we don’t know exactly how much money it will take to replace every school bus,” Becker told Colorado Newsline. “We’ll see over time, as we replace older ones, and as the adoption rate increases, just how the costs go down.”

Polis said electric buses can be operated at lower costs and “free up money for better teacher pay and smaller class sizes,” Colorado Newsline reported.

But Heidi Ganahl, Republican challenger for governor, said in a press release that Polis is prioritizing “his Green New Deal over Colorado children."

“Gov. Polis is spending $65 million on electric school buses when 60% of Colorado kids cannot read or do math at grade level. I’m all for electric vehicles, and renewable energy, but we clearly have bigger problems in this state. Where are your priorities Jared Polis and Joe Biden?” Ganahl, a member of the University of Colorado Board of Regents who defeated Greg Lopez in the Republican primary in June, said in the press release.

Ganahl said in the release that the money spent on electric school buses could be used to increase teachers’ pay, provide school supplies or increase per pupil funding.

Polis didn’t respond to a request for comment.

However, Polis said in a press release that “electric school buses will help save schools across our state money, help clean our air and protect children's health and safety.”

“Our landmark clean air initiatives at the state level paired with the federal investments will help cut pollution, and provide savings for schools and we encourage school districts across Colorado to take advantage of this opportunity to lower operating costs and reduce reliance on expensive diesel buses to free up more money for better teacher pay and smaller class size,” Polis said in the release.

In the fall of the 2021-2022 school year, 46% of K-3 students in Denver were reading at grade level or above, a decrease from 56% in the fall of 2020, according to iStation literacy test scores, Chalkbeat Colorado reported. About a third of black and Hispanic early-grades students in Denver were reading at grade level or above last fall.

“This is something I believe we should be pretty concerned about,” Jessica Martin, the Denver school district’s executive director of assessment, reporting and data, told Chalkbeat Colorado. 

Martin said that although teaching students to read can be challenging, “It’s even harder to catch up a student who is several years behind. And in this particular year, that percentage is now about a third of our students.” District officials pointed to pandemic restrictions and school closures as contributing factors for students' lower competency scores.

Around 40% of Colorado ninth graders exhibit grade-level competency in math, a decrease from pre-pandemic numbers, CBS Colorado reported. Out of students in all districts across the state in grades three through eighth, 43.2% exhibit grade-level proficiency in English Language Arts, and 31.5% exhibit grade-level proficiency in math.