Increasing Fuel Costs Hit Hard

Mary Ballou, a bus driver for the Montgomery County public schools in Maryland, fills her vehicle with fuel at a depot in Rockville, Md., before starting her route on July 2.

—Stephanie Kuykendal for Education Week

Districts Change Policies To Offset Rising Prices

By Katie Ash

With fuel prices soaring nationwide, reaching more than $4 for each gallon of gas or diesel, school districts are struggling to supplement transportation-budget shortfalls and find ways to offset the increasing costs as a new school year approaches.

“This is completely unprecedented,” said Michael J. Martin, the executive director of the Albany, N.Y.-based National Association for Pupil Transportation, or NAPT. “I don’t think it was on anyone’s radar screen.”

Now districts—most of whose buses run on diesel fuel—are scrambling to squeeze every drop of efficiency out of fuel tanks by consolidating bus stops, revisiting routes with optimized software and GPS technology, and implementing...