Jodie Chambers’ grandson came home on Thursday from River’s Edge Elementary School in Clayton County all bundled up in his clothes, despite temperatures in the mid-90s.
“He had his hoodie on and I’m like, ‘Why do you have all this on you?’” Chambers said she asked the 5-year-old. “And he said, ‘Grandma, it’s cold on the bus.’”
After years of operating bus fleets without air conditioning, school systems across metro Atlanta are racing to modernize their student transportation to offer the kind of cooling their charges are used to in the family car.
It comes at a cost. School systems are spending millions on the buses, which often cost about $10,000 to $15,000 above the price of a standard bus without cooling, according to Denise Hall, executive director of Clayton’s transportation department. Buses — with or with air conditioning — can cost on average between $99,000 and $150,000, she said.
“We have to constantly work on the older buses,” she said. “They sometimes build up condensation that leaks on the floor or they run out of Freon and blow out hot air.”
Progress on the transition to air-conditioned vehicles varies by district. Some districts — such as the city of Decatur and Clayton and Fayette counties — have air conditioning on all of their buses, while others have it on about half of their fleet.
Atlanta Public Schools and Gwinnett County are midway through their transition to a fully air-conditioned fleet, while the DeKalb and Fulton districts appear to be in the early or not-quite middle stages of their efforts.
While many administrators want air-conditioned buses to keep kids cool, particularly amid the recent blazing hot temperatures, some districts use it as a carrot to lure candidates in the ultracompetitive market for school bus drivers.
“Work in the morning and afternoons, and be off on holidays and during the summer months. All buses are air conditioned, and Fayette County has one of the most modern fleets in the state of Georgia,” Fayette says in a pitch for drivers on its webpage.
Demetrius Denise Holiday, head of Georgia State University’s pediatric nurse practitioner program, said prolonged exposure to heat causes dehydration in children, who can lose focus in the classroom as their bodies attempt to regulate the fluid loss. It also can exacerbate asthma and allergies, adding further challenges to the school day.
Several districts are retrofitting some of their buses with air conditioning amid efforts to buy new vehicles with AC units.
Gwinnett, which has the largest school district-owned fleet in the country with 2,000 buses, has about 1,030 buses with air conditioning, spokeswoman Marisol Devarez said. Air conditioning has been retrofitted on about 200 buses, with the school system authorizing $4.2 million for the work last school year and another $2.1 million this school year. Every bus purchased since 2020 has come equipped with AC.
Fulton’s fleet is about 17% air-conditioned, district leaders said. They said its 160 air-conditioned buses transport children with special needs. Fulton expects next month to receive 30 buses with air conditioning and three-point seat belts, spokeswoman Anne Hampson Boatwright said in an email.
In DeKalb, 327 school buses have air conditioning, spokesman Donald Porter said. Another 300 of its approximately 950 buses will be retrofitted with AC over the next 24 months. All new school buses, Porter said, come equipped with AC.
Credit: Jason Getz / Jason.Getz@ajc.com
Credit: Jason Getz / Jason.Getz@ajc.com
In Henry County, the district has replaced 106 buses, or about 30% of its bus fleet, with new air-conditioned buses over the past five years, spokesman Kyle Sears said. The south metro Atlanta school system hopes to replace at least 25 buses each year with new air-conditioned vehicles.
In general, school systems prioritize which routes get air-conditioned buses, with ones for special needs children topping the list, followed by longer routes, district officials said. Every bus transporting special needs children has air conditioning in Cherokee County, as do all but 44 vehicles in the school system’s 386-bus fleet, spokeswoman Barbara Jacoby said.
Cherokee employs several strategies to make the ride comfortable. Buses on longer routes get first dibs on the air-conditioned buses, and students are permitted to bring water on the vehicles. Cherokee principals also release buses as soon as possible after dismissal to reduce the amount of time students are on buses, Jacoby said.
Marietta Schools spokesman Chris Fiore said about half of its buses have air conditioning, and school leaders switched to air-conditioned bus-only purchases about two years ago.
Credit: Katelyn Myrick
Credit: Katelyn Myrick
Hall, the Clayton transportation director, said Clayton’s switch to air-conditioned-only buses several years ago was not only for students, but bus drivers, too.
“It’s our goal that they have good experiences and the kids are kept safe,” she said.
Staff writers Cassidy Alexander, Martha Dalton, Joshua Reyes and Evan Lasseter contributed to this article.
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