Expect to see more smaller school buses on the road when the 2026-27 school year gets going in August.
The Palm Beach County School District has purchased 15 new, 14-passenger school buses that are shorter than the typical yellow buses that ferry students from stops to school.
Five of the new buses are equipped with wheelchair lifts and cost $133,000 each. The other 10 cost $121,000.
The smaller buses are part of the district’s answer to new immigration rules, a shortage of drivers with a commercial driver’s license and a need to save money as enrollment drops reduce state funding.
Shorter school buses cost less to drive in Palm Beach County, and more people can drive them
Palm Beach County School Board Chair Karen Brill was particularly happy with the decision to go smaller on buses.
“No pun intended, but I was a driving force in us doing that,” she said. “I do think it’s going to save us money.”
A typically sized, diesel school bus costs $160,000, nearly $30,000 more than the smaller buses the district bought.
Board Member Marcia Andrews said the district has long needed to diversify its fleet.
“I’m pretty excited about this,” she said. “This is something that we’ve been wanting for a long time. I thank this board for approving this at a time when cost is everything. Right now, we need to save as much money as possible. And it’s a good thing for the little children that need the small setting. It’s wonderful.”
The bus purchases, approved by the school board in March and discussed in more detail in May, were the second substantial bus buy in as many years.
Last year, the district bought 20 electric buses with grant money from the state Department of Environmental Protection. The district spent $6 million in that purchase, with the grant allowing it to obtain the electric buses for close to the $160,000 price tag of a standard, diesel-powered bus.
Joseph Sanches, the district’s chief operating officer, said the $400,000-plus price tag for electronic buses is still too high for the district to buy them when it needs new buses.
Bigger pool of bus drivers to help Palm Beach County School District get students to school
The new, shorter buses will handle 75 routes this school year. District officials are still working out who will ride the shorter buses, which are prized because of their maneuverability and lower price tag.
While the district’s checkbook can help it obtain new buses, getting drivers to operate them hasn’t been as easy.
There is a nationwide shortage of drivers with a commercial driver’s license, or CDL, and school districts have struggled to compete for those drivers with private hauling firms.
The Trump Administration has made CDL holders more scarce by changing federal rules to bar immigrants without permanent legal status from obtaining or renewing a CDL. Administration officials cited high-profile, fatal crashes involving undocumented CDL holders in pushing for the change. One of those crashes occurred on Florida’s Turnpike in August.
The new federal rules took effect in March. A few months months earlier, in December 2026, new state rules were already offering school districts a different pathway to getting more drivers.
The state began allowing drivers with a standard Class E license, the one most drivers use to operate their vehicles, to operate small buses weighing less than 26,001 pounds.
The vehicles must be designed to carry 15 or fewer passengers, including the driver. New drivers would undergo 40 hours of preservice training, including 20 hours in a classroom and eight behind the wheel.
The district can now put Class E license holders behind the wheel of its new, smaller buses.
“We’re really excited about getting them because it gives us the opportunity to increase the number of drivers that we have to operate our facilities,” said Shane Searchwell, the district’s director of transportation services. “(The new rules) will give us a bigger pool of drivers, which we desperately need to operate daily.”
Wayne Washington is a journalist covering education and Riviera Beach development for The Palm Beach Post. You can reach him at wwashington@pbpost.com. Help support our work; subscribe today.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Schools say new fleet of shorter buses solves two problems. Here’s how
Reporting by Wayne Washington, Palm Beach Post / Palm Beach Post
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By Wayne Washington, Palm Beach Post | USA TODAY Network
