Haines schools to lease buses for student transportation this year

Tia Grant (left) and North Bishop (right) board Klukwan school’s bus on March 6, 2025, in Haines. The neighboring Haines Borough school district has struggled to provide busing services to students this year due to rising costs and asked the Klukwan school to coordinate student transportation. Ultimately the Haines school administration decided to lease and operate its own buses. (Will Steinfeld/Chillkat Valley News).

By Rashah McChesney

Chilkat Valley News

After months of wrangling and a controversial decision to drop busing for the year, the Haines board of education voted to lease up to three buses and take on the responsibility of transporting students to and from school this year. 

The vote came after Superintendent Lilly Boron presented a transportation plan to the board during a Tuesday evening meeting. 

She said Haines Development Inc. has agreed to lease its school buses to the district for the year. 

“They’ll ensure that two school buses are available, road-ready, on August 19. That’s the first day of school,” she said. 

Under the arrangement, the school district had to find its own certified drivers, which had become an issue that drove costs up, according to Haines Development Inc. owner Roger Schnabel. 

“We can’t seem to find drivers,” he said during a July interview. “Certified drivers, we’re looking at right about $13,000 [and] that’s without paying for the potential driver’s wages to get that certification.” 

Boron said the district has lined up one driver who is ready on August 19. A second is available Oct. 1. 

The plan, Boron said, will be to run a bus on the 80-mile-round-trip Haines Highway route at the beginning of the school year and then bring on the 16-mile-round-trip Mud Bay route on Oct. 1. 

Families on the Mud Bay route would get reimbursed 70 cents a mile for one round-trip to the school a day until a driver is available to take on that route. 

“I did talk to the families and they have a plan for carpooling,” Boron said. “There’s some people at the far end [who]  are willing to bring in some of those students.” 

She said the district will also cover the cost of recertification for drivers. Currently one driver needs to rectify the “S” endorsement, which, according to the state’s Department of Motor Vehicles, requires a background check, a nominal fee to the state and a physical. 

“So it’s not the full training, it’s just the renewal – getting that license renewal,” she said. 

Boron said she is looking ahead to options for the next school year. The district generally requests for new transportation proposals in January. 

District administration presented estimates that came in within the $175,000 the board originally budgeted for student transportation. That includes: 

• $45,000 to lease the buses

• $80,000 for salary and benefits

• $15,000 for insurance

• $ 50-75 a day for fuel for 172 days

• $15,000 for maintenance

• 
  

Boron said she has consulted with Schnabel and the bus drivers about what the buses need and noted that the district needs to continue getting a video feed on the buses and having a dispatch system. 

Board member Michael Wald volunteered to bring his Starlink satellite internet system in for the school district to test and to help provide those services. 

After the work session, the board returned at 8 p.m. for a formal meeting and unanimously voted to accept the new transportation plan.

• This article originally appeared in the Chilkat Valley News.