School

40 new school buses for Okaloosa students are slated to arrive before the new school year

At Thursday’s Okaloosa County School Board workshop, Superintendent Marcus Chambers briefed the Board on the status of new school buses. “About 25 of the new school buses are in,” said Chambers. “The next 15 should be in before the start of school.” According to Chambers, the District currently has between 160-180 school buses. The 40 […]

Jared Williams

At Thursday’s Okaloosa County School Board workshop, Superintendent Marcus Chambers briefed the Board on the status of new school buses.

“About 25 of the new school buses are in,” said Chambers. “The next 15 should be in before the start of school.”

According to Chambers, the District currently has between 160-180 school buses. The 40 new buses are part of the District’s “School Bus Replacement Program”.

“We will look to have anywhere from 10 to 20 buses added each year,” continued Chambers. “So over the course of 8 years, we hope to have a whole fleet of buses that are new, air conditioned, and have seat belts.”

Before the end of the school year, School Board Member Linda Evanchyk posted a photo of one of the new buses.

“I’m excited to get to see one of the Okaloosa School District’s new buses up close today,” wrote Evanchyk. “Look at that bus number! The first number means that the bus was built this year. Okaloosa County residents, thank you. This is your tax money going to work for our students.”

That tax money is the half-cent sales tax that Okaloosa residents approved back in November 2020.
The first installment of half-cent sales tax money began to hit the bank account in April of this year for Okaloosa schools, according to Vince Mayfield (below).

Flashback: Back in 2019, Escambia County’s School Board agreed to donate 30 of their old buses to Okaloosa. That was the second time that Escambia had donated buses. Eight of those donated buses had air conditioning.

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