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Three new buses on the way for Fraser-Cascade School District

A change to funding from the ministry will allow the district to purchase three replacement buses
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A Fraser-Cascade School District bus heads down Chaplin Road in Agassiz. (Grace Kennedy/The Observer)

The Fraser-Cascade School District is getting nearly $526,000 for three new school buses.

The money is coming as part of funding from the province for projects in school districts across the province. In March, the Fraser-Cascade School District received nearly $1.2 million for energy and safety upgrades to Hope Secondary and Boston Bar Elementary.

RELATED: Provincial funding from Ministry of Education will help complete three SD 78 projects

“Our capital plan that we submitted to the ministry had a number of replacements for buses” in addition to the energy and safety upgrades, secretary-treasurer Natalie Lowe said at the April 16 school board meeting.

But the district didn’t initially receive funding for those buses, she said, because they weren’t considered eligible for the Bus Aquisition Program from the ministry of education.

However, Lowe said, “we were able to provide sufficient evidence of need, and they revised our capital plan to include the bus replacements that we needed.”

The $525,933 in funding will go to purchase three new buses for the district, at $175,311 a bus. These buses will not be wheelchair accessible, although the district is planning to purchase a wheelchair-accessible bus next year.

The three replacement buses are currently being ordered and are expected to be in service by September.



grace.kennedy@ahobserver.com

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