The Highland School District will be receiving an upgrade to their bus fleet for the next school year.

During the school board’s regular meeting on January 10th, the board approved the purchase of a new bus for the district. Superintendent Ken Crawford says that the board approved the purchase to lock in a lower price as cost for buses has continued to increase, “We haven’t purchased a bus for a couple of years and we like to try and do that every couple of years. We know that the cost of a bus was going to continue to jump on us. The last bus we bought, we bought at around $86,000. And this time our lowest bid, we had one from Hoglund Bus for $102,000 and then from Blue Bird Bus that was about $111,000.”

The board accepted the bid from Hoglund Bus Company for a 65 passenger diesel bus. Crawford added that this will be the first bus with seat belts that they have purchased since state law now requires new buses to have them. He expects the bus to arrive around September or October. At that time, the district will then put one of their older buses up for sale.