Matt, welcome to the campus energy and sustainability podcast. In each episode, we talk with leading campus professionals, thought leaders, engineers and innovators addressing the unique challenges and opportunities facing higher ed and corporate campuses. Our discussions will range from energy conservation and efficiency to planning and finance, from building science to social science, from energy systems to food systems. We hope you're ready to learn, share and ultimately accelerate your institution towards solutions. I'm your host, Dave Carl Scott. I'm the Vice President of infrastructure, energy and sustainability at Brailsford and Dudley.
We've had opportunities to have students, to walk the busses, to see the charging stations. There are all opportunities that educators have acquired about I think that's the part of the return of the investment that you just can't measure with a spreadsheet.
Hi, I'm Will Mangla, President at Brailsford and dunlapy. Welcome to the campus energy and sustainability podcast, it's my pleasure to introduce today's guest, Mr. Jason Washington, associate superintendent of Prince George's County Public Schools, a dedicated leader in education and a passionate advocate for student success, who happens to be my fraternity brother. Jason began his career as a teacher and has continuously sought roles where he can make a meaningful impact. His work spans law, community development and public service, all driven by a commitment to equity and opportunity. Currently, he leads the development and implementation of the nation's first K 12 bundled schools, concessionaire motto here in Prince George's County. Before this role, Jason served as an executive director of the National Council for public private partnerships, and held leadership positions at corvius and city first enterprise. He also has been a White House fellow at the US Department of Housing and Urban Development, a senior policy advisor to the mayor of Baltimore, and practice corporate law at Kirtland and Ellis LLP with the strong record of driving innovation, empowering educators and improving student outcome, Jason's leadership continues to shape the future of education in one of the most diverse school districts in The country. Please join me in welcoming Mr. Jason Washington.
Jason, it's great to have you on the
podcast today. Well, it's a pleasure. Dave. Thank you so much. Looking forward to our conversation.
Let's start with just an introduction to who you are as an individual, and then we'll get into the project that we want to discuss today.
I'm Jason Washington, associate superintendent of supporting services for priest Georges County Public Schools, which is a loan title for basically, Deputy Chief Operating Officer for the school district. So I manage the division of operations, so seven different divisions, transportation, food service, security, as well as building services, capital programs, sustainability, resiliency and our alternative infrastructure. Office. I have been with the school system for five years, and I am a recovery attorney. That's a little about being and the role that I have right now.
It was interesting looking at your history on LinkedIn. You've been a seventh grade teacher. I saw as well. You have quite the varied background.
Yeah, I started my career as a teacher. I learned very quickly that I had a passion for education, but it was not going to be in front of the classroom, and had a circuitous path to get back here. But everything happens for a reason, and very happy to now take the experiences that I've had at other places and in the private sector to utilize them on behalf of our students. 130,000 students here appreciate this county.
That's great. Well as a recovering music major and recovering software developer, I appreciate a good, circuitous path to your role. Well, I know today we want to really lean into some of the fleet electrification work that you've been doing at the school district in particular, it sounds like some of the work you've been doing around electrification of school busses, but let's maybe start. Just give us a little bit of the background on the program. I know this came out of some of your climate action planning efforts and some of the larger goals for the for the state and the county.
Yeah, really, where this took off was, would it say probably 2018 or so the community really started to ask Prince George's County, what are we doing to really embrace sustainability, resiliency, really from a standpoint of school construction, but overall, we are a massive anchor institution within the county. You know that should be a leader, and that should not only say what we're doing, but. To demonstrate that in our actions. And that really led to the work group that started that ended up developing the climate change action plan that was adopted in 2021 and within there, there are facets, both on sustainability, resiliency, EB busses, as well as net zero schools. It was just an all inclusive, real blueprint of how we as a school system wanted to demonstrate our commitment to sustainability and resiliency. And so that's how it started, and then it has now really morphed into the development of a new office, the Department of Sustainability, resiliency, and then also populating our other departments with pieces of implementation of this program as well that fit better with them. So with EV busses, transportation is has a role in that. And then our Office of alternative infrastructure is our vehicle to look at how we can utilize different financing opportunities and not just pay go to pay for some of these improvements and and also sustainable targets that we have?
Yeah, can you? Let's maybe lean into the electric fleet piece in particular, what, what brought you to that specifically? How did that fit into your program? Like, where did you even get started in thinking about electrification of
vehicles? I think it was really around pilot opportunities that we that were shown across the country. One of the the unique features of Prince George's County is that it's both urban and very rural, depending on where you are, and roughly, approximately, I think we have 490 square miles. And so it's, it's not a one size fits all approach, and that's where we wanted to make sure that we did think through, you know, how we could, you know, start to incorporate electric vehicle charging in a way that was thoughtful and I think, just more measured than just going buying up as many as we could at first and so, but that's where It's really started. Was, you know, the opportunity to have pilot opportunities and grant opportunities to start that process for us. And so it made a lot of sense, especially in some of our urban core areas. That's what we really started looking at. And quite honestly, we felt that that is where we need to be going from a from an environmental standpoint, a sustainability standpoint, and for us, the potential savings and diesel and other type of expenses that we you know, that we're paying for every every year in our annual budget.
Great. Well, maybe talk a little bit about what you've done so far and maybe what some of your aspirations are going, you know, in terms of, like, how many, how many busses or vehicles are you even talking about? What are the ranges of them? I appreciate that you have kind of a mix of urban and rural. I imagine I grew up in rural Montana, so I think there were kids that bust in for like, an hour away for some of our schools, where, now that I live in Seattle, it's a much different landscape where they kids just take school busses. But maybe talk a little bit about just the landscape, just to give people a
flavor of what you're working with. So we have we started with the mandate the climate change action plan has a stated goal be 100% electrified bus fleet by 2040 and so that is where we started. Now that we've started to implement this, that is not a sustainable target, so we are adjusting that, both from a mostly fiscal standpoint, quite honestly, but also just in terms of making sure that we don't outgrow the infrastructure and that we don't out advance necessarily and overwhelm the infrastructure that's in place. We currently have 21 busses that really were funded through joint state and federal funds and grant programs. We have another eight that are coming, and those have been funded through the Maryland Energy Administration electric bus grant program. But, you know, there were eight more that we had ordered that will not be fulfilled, because those were tied to the EPA electric vehicle bus rebate program. And so that's has really, you know, impacted how we thought through the incorporation of electric vehicles and electric busses particularly, but at the same time, it has made sure that we are thoughtful around our allocations each year is because the cost of electric vehicle EV busses all. Are, are more than diesel. And so, you know, we have to make the business case that is not just bottom line dollars and cents, but it's the long term savings across, you know, not just dollars, but emissions, also the educational opportunities that exist for teaching our students about the busses and the technology that are also factored into, you know, how we have got into, you know, incorporating electric busses into our fleet and into the school district.
Great. So it's not, I mean that it sounds like a good start. Roughly how many busses you have overall, like, what percentage would that represent?
That would represent very small. We have over 1000 busses. We are changing out each year, roughly 100 at a time. So that's where the Be. A fully electrified fleet by 2040, would in a normal cycle. That's why I would have been about 15 years, because we would have been changing out 100 busses a year. And so that's where, you know, it was very measured and thoughtful when we implemented it. It's just now the reality has changed, but that's that's how we would have gotten to the fully electrified fleet by 24
great, and it sounds like for the most part. So far, they've been grant funded, purchased by the district, not necessarily leased or another financial structure. Or is that correct? Correct? Great. Is that worked out for you? I mean, is that made sense? Obviously, somebody donates the money to you and you can use it. The implication then is like, maintenance and things like that, is that? How's that worked?
Maintenance, for sure, but then also, you know, making sure that we are utilizing the busses for for a while, you know, you we had some bus drivers that were nervous, scared to drive them, also the education and the training aspect, and also the charging infrastructure, making sure that that was in place and be thoughtful about where they would deploy. The big piece here for us, really was around. Actually, the delivery were tied up for a while because of just supply chain backups. I think we are at 21 busses going to 2829 here we probably would, probably I would say you have closer to 4045, if it was the same supply chain, robust supply chain that we see on the diesel side. And so that was something we just had to get used to. Is that when you put out orders, I've learned this for bus ordery, you put out an order in July is where we usually do it, and by early spring, the busses are being delivered. It's not that same, not yet, anyway, or our experience, rather, has it been that same predictability, and so that has added a little bit of of learning curve for us as well.
Interesting, yeah. Well, I mean, I find this story really fascinating, just because you are a lot further along than a lot of districts, which is great and which is always really excited to talk to you about this, you mentioned a few things there. Maybe we can dig into them individually. You said some of the drivers were nervous about driving them, like, how did you get over that? Or have you gotten over that? Or is that continue to be a challenge? Or what has been their experience once they've actually driven? Actually driven
them, would actually drive to them? They're fine. I think it's the whole they've heard the worst stories, oh, it catches on fire, or you have to let it this or that. What we've seen has been that the drivers overall have been very comfortable once they've gotten into it and trained to realize this is just a regular bus, just, you know, because, you know, you're worried about, like, what if I run out of charge? You? What if I do this and we're, like, trust us, like, like you, it's not just gonna stop on you on a dime. But then it's also, you know, how does this bus, you know, adapt to weather changes? How does this like? So, it's all of those pieces that, you know, they just want to make sure that they know everything. And I think it was just the bore of that, instead of us just tossing them a key and say, drive this bus, it was more, it was more around breaking it down. But then once they driven and, you know, my my daughter rides the bus and to school, and there are a couple of electric busses that pick her up and quiet as could be, like it is literally a and that has come back to from the drivers is that it's just, you know, a more, you know, enjoyable drive. Sometimes you have the bus making noise along with the kids. So at least now you can isolate it to just the key. It's so to speak,
but they're still noisy just for the right reasons. Yeah,
just so, but overall, I mean, but I think those small part to our transportation team that really embraced getting up to speed on it and be trained themselves to be able to speak knowledgeably on it and to be. The drivers where they
are, that's great. How have the kids reacted? It sounds like your daughter likes it, but, oh yeah,
they've enjoyed it. I think, you know, if you get picked up at seven o'clock for school, I don't think you care what the bus is. You're just upset that you're on the bus at seven and you wanted to sleep in. But no, I think we have, really, you know, the opportunity for for students, for for learning, like you know, when we've had opportunities to have the busses, for students, to walk the busses just to see the charging stations, there are all opportunities that I know some of our educators have, have inquired about and have done with our transportation department, with the busses. And I think that's the part of the return of the investment that you just can't measure with, you know, a spreadsheet, so to speak.
Well, one other big constituency, especially for your elementary age kids, would be your parents. Have they reacted well? Or what's what's that been response? What's the response been there?
It's been well received. I think that it's, it's the fact that, you know, it is on time and quiet, and I definitely feel that in certain neighborhoods is very well received, just because of communities that are more focused on sustainability measures and resiliency than others, and so being able to see us following through with that. And you know, providing and being a leader in green technology is something that I we've heard from parents that have been very happy. We have not heard any parent upset. Let me put it that way, that's great. We will take pleasure that anecdotal
evidence, yeah, my experience working with school districts, you'll know if people don't like something, right? Very quickly. Well, that's great. Well, let's maybe lean a little bit more into the tech, tech aspects of this. So I'd be curious to learn a little bit more about the charging infrastructure. These busses need a lot of power to get charged up. Was that a major barrier to getting them installed? Or how did would that come with the initial grants? Or how have you guys managed the the charging infrastructure? Because you basically need your own gas station. And unlike you know, that infrastructure somewhere else for a diesel bus,
and that's literally where we are right now. So for the busses that we have, we have three mobile chargers that we have at the lot with the busses. What we've also had to do is, have, we've had to adjust the routes so that we ensure that, you know, they're not all coming back drained completely, because we only have three chargers. So, so it's the really that interchange right now, while we move forward with basically retrofitting an existing bus lot. We had one bus lot identify, but the routes were going to be consistently long because it was further out. So now we've made an adjustment to a more urban bus lot that's literally right in the middle of a city center that allows for broader access, where we will put in the infrastructure that's there. So our Office of alternative infrastructure planning and development is working right now on the development of a RFQ, an RFP, to go out to the market for a developer to help them develop really. Are we doing a micro grid? Are we going to do a combination of just chargers, you know, install charges with the local utilities? How do we take advantage with, you know, tax rebates, you know, going away in certain cases? What does that look like? How do we make it pencil out? So that's the next piece of this, and that's where we will probably pause on purchasing busses until we get the infrastructure in place to where we are not having busses sit idly by because we don't have enough sufficient charging capability. And so those have been the next steps in this proof of concept. The busses work. You charge them, they will run. They're just like any other busses now. That requires us to put in the necessary infrastructure that you know, and calibrate it to what what our future looks like. We don't need to do a bus lot of 300 chargers right now, but we need to, you know, have substantial capacity if we need to expand. Because, you know, as I've talked to our team, priorities change administrations, change things change. So we have to be open and flexible to adapt as we need to. And that's kind of how we are approaching it right now.
That's great how, I guess, backing up a step, you said you had three mobile chargers, that's that's good. So these are basically like giant batteries that he charged somewhere else. And then you can move them around. Tell me more about that.
Yeah. So, so they are. They came with the busses that was part of grant funding that we had. And what we have is on each lot where we have electric busses, we have, I think two of them. Them are high speed chargers. Wood is regular charger. We have allocated it to five to seven busses per charger. And what we have is we have different runs. So we have a boarding run, that bus comes back charges. We have afternoon. So they have it on a pretty good, I guess, routine in terms of charging, but those have allowed us the flexibility to see where we can maximize the use of the busses. So we're not tied to, well, we only have a charge ability and right here, so we have to stay here. It gives us that ability to give us that ability to really pressure test and determine where to be. That's how we determine the need for moving it to a more centralized lot with shorter routes and more frequent routes, so that we felt like we'd get more for the charge than what we see in some of our outer rim lots at this point.
Interesting. Yeah, no, that's great. Maybe come back to the funding. So I know you already mentioned that your plans have changed a little bit as some of the funding that was available is no longer available. Can you speak to kind of that journey, or how you guys are navigating that now? It sounds like, based on what you've said, is maybe taking a pause and kind of working with what you got now, maybe working more on the charging for now, but it sounds like, so far, about eight busses that you thought you were gonna get have been stopped. But has it been more than that that you just like planning, you know, talk to me more about that in a
theoretical long term plan. Yes, it's more than that, because we were planning to, you know, to purchase every year from a definitive nature eight, but really taking a step back. It's, it's now, you know, making sure that we don't get over our skis. What? What is our annual budget allocation? We this is our allocation every year for busses. We have a long term asset plan and management plan for the busses that we have. So we have to be thoughtful in making sure that we don't, you know, spend three, 3x a diesel on electric, and we don't have the corresponding infrastructure. We don't have the corresponding, you know, tax credit or rebate or or grant funds that are there. And so what we've decided is especially based upon when the new administration's bill passed in July, we just said, Okay, let's stop now and let this come through the system and we figure out what it is. We've heard everything from the firm, from never again Can we do it and to we just need to figure out the way to finance it and to do it, or nothing has changed. So we've heard all of it, so we'd like, Okay, let's stop and actually think through how we want to approach this. And what that looks like is even with, you know, our drive for electric bus infrastructure and acquisition of more busses, we were also looking at other alternative options as well. So propane to diversify the biofuels is something else that so we had always had that approach. It allowed us to not stop, but to reallocate the resources as appropriate right now, until we get more certainty on the EV framework, so to speak, just writ large, regardless of busses or whatever, just just all of it, there's a lot of confusion and where people are going. But then on the budget side, yes, it's had an impact. From a standpoint, we have some stakeholders, as you can imagine, that are like, Nope, we, we said it. We should just go. We should go. But it's, it's, it's one of those that's where, like, well, that's great, but in four years, you all may be the same folks saying, why do we waste this money if we did not have X, Y and Z in place, or we didn't know for sure, or or there was the there was the possibility that this program would end. Why do we keep going? So it's always that balance that's necessary. But no, it has the grant money and the rebates were a incredible and necessary carrot to kit, to get folks moving and to to to move with some urgency on our part, because that was necessary. That's the point of those programs, of course. But not having that now requires us to to ensure that, okay, let's make sure our infrastructure is in place, because it's hard to defeat making these purchases if we don't have the adequate infrastructure in the first place, from the electrification and the infrastructure part, that's why we're looking at alternative financing. What are options that we have? Are there places where we can monetize and then pay for it ourselves? Because we are committed to continuing the work, we just want to be fiscally responsible with. How we proceed, recognizing that, you know, budgets are finite, and unfortunately, most cases are decreasing in some categories,
yeah, especially in public schools. Often that's the case. Yeah? Well, maybe keying off a couple of things you mentioned in there. It may be too early to tell, because it sounds like you're still getting some of the infrastructure kinks worked out from even the 29 that you have. Have you noticed? Well, one of the big pitches that I've heard about an electric bus is, yeah, it's more expensive up front, but the O and M or operating costs are wildly cheaper, both in terms of fuel, because you're not buying diesel and you're buying electricity, but you're it's way more efficient at using electricity, so that tends to be less cost, and then, more importantly, the just the maintenance of the vehicles themselves, the electric busses just have far less moving parts. Has that proven out so far, or have you had enough time to really know if that's true, we
probably will be at the stage of knowing that's true this summer, just from a standpoint of our annual maintenance. I can say that I have not heard anything rise to my level, that, you know, we are doing more for these busses than we would normally do. We're doing and if where I sent hearing nothing means is great, fair enough, yeah, but no, I think it's still a little early. But you know, when you look at what the electric bus does not have, like, you know, you don't have to change the org. We don't have to do, you know, logically, it would have to be, you know, a better returned there on the ondm side the busses that we have now. It'd be about two year mark, and I think we will be at the place where, you know, they've had two cycles of returns and updates and asset management to where we can start to have some comparisons between the diesel and the electric busses.
That's great. Yeah. And then the other thing you mentioned was alternative financing options. I know another, you know, assuming that the O and M costs are cheaper and knowing that the capital cost is more. A lot of, lot of for profit companies have been touting, hey, well, we'll sell you busses a service, or we'll, you know, and I know some other school districts are, are working those types of models where they're not buying the busses, they're leasing the busses, or they're, yeah, you know, you know, having the bus service as a service, is that something that you're considering now, or how has that weighed into your evaluation? Makes sense, why you didn't do it upfront if you had grant money? I mean, that sort of is the opposite of that, right? So it's it was there to buy the bus, but, you know, I'll let you talk to that,
that pretty much is, is what we're examining now. So don't know that. This takes it off this topic for a minute, but I'll bring it back. Is that Prince George's County. We are the first school district in the country to utilize private financing to build schools. So we are currently building, have delivered six, and currently building eight more schools right now. So utilizing that same concept of like, hey, we let, let's, let's get the capital taken care of, add long term O and EO, and then just pay it out over time. So we have already dipped our, I can't even say, dipped our toe, I would say, have dove all the way in, into the alternative infrastructure process now. But what we need to identify as it relates to the alternative infrastructure that construct is dedicated revenue. Where can we pull or what savings do we derive from going away from diesel? And that was kind of the construct of the electrification process that we're looking at is, what is our annual spend on diesel? If we buy X number of electric busses. What is the savings on diesel costs, and is that enough of a plug number to finance the capital cost of a new facility? So that literally, is the exercise we're going through now, and to be frank, that's probably how we are going to restart the bus purchasing as well as the infrastructure is utilizing some model similar to that, and what the contours of that look like, I don't know, but that's, that's where we're headed. So we because of the fact is that, you know, folks understand the mortgage. Folks understand you take it out now and over a period of time, it's just that this approach is not due anywhere but in America, because we have the tax exempt markets. So if you so, so that's all. So that's the other piece of this, is we go that route, but then we have to defend why we're willing to pay three and a half 5% interest versus just pay, Go, get it for free on the tax exempt bond market, there's a different conversation than the urgency of building a school versus busses like so it's those pieces that we are working through now, but you hit it. I believe that that's going to be the mechanism of which to continue the drive, because. If it's just going to be funded by grant money and rebate programs, it's not sustainable, and you have to get to a market structure to where it's competitive on just a per purchase standpoint, without any of the enticements getting people into the market. And, you know, you do that to build the market, and then the market size allows you to then have, you know, the ability to have market rate busses and to sell them at a comparable price as diesel. That's the goal of all of this. I just see that that's going to take longer than it anticipated,
yeah, not helped by some of the changes in Washington at this point. I imagine, I guess couple other ancillary questions would be one of the major pluses of electric busses that I've heard, you know, kind of touted as people that are promoting them, is the local air pollution. So the pollution for the kids actually riding the bus and then the neighborhoods that they operate. Did that enter into your conversation? Was that part of the original impetus to going down this road, or how much is and how has that played out for the busses that are in
service? Oh yeah, that was definitely the case. I mean is, is that, because it's part of the climate change action plan, the whole drive was to radically reduce carbon emissions by the school system, and so EV busses is just one route. We are now all of the schools, I told you about, six of the eight will be net zero. All of the our kitchens are going to all compostable materials. So it's it was front and center to the development of the climate action change climate action policies, and top of mind for us our returns of that is that, you know, we have communities that are very happy that we are doing this. You know, we have incredibly high incidences in some neighborhoods of asthma, and so is that a contributing factor? Probably, yes, exhausted the air. I would assume, you know, to to some to some level would be so all of that was taken into account, and that's how you come up with with a robust overarching plan like this is we want to hit it everywhere possible, multi pronged so that if, in this case, funding stops on x, it doesn't stop us from continuing to move the ball for the conversation of resiliency and sustainability.
That makes sense. Speaking to resiliency, another kind of thing that I'll hear touted a lot with electric busses is you essentially have a roving backup generator, you know, you know, to in the case of an emergency, an electric bus, the amount of power that those things can hold, you know, in theory, not you have to set it up the right way. Could provide electricity for, you know, a small community center, for example, or a school if it's set up the right way. Have you gotten that far? Or is that part of your infrastructure discussion that you're looking
at now? That's part of the infrastructure discussion, and we have had initial conversation with architects around this, around basically power back to the grid. It's a little different from just the size of schools, but, you know, you don't need to electrify the whole school, you know, maybe a portion, you know, and we're doing the same thing with the gas generator. And so that has come up. I know that there are early stage technologies around that. That's something that we will continue to explore, and what that will require us to do is look at how we design, our design standards, because we have, you know, busses must be here relative to cars, relative to the building, so it's going to require some of our specifications, architectural specifications, to be updated. But that's definitely something that we started to talk about, and it will require us to have a different change in posture to our bus fleets like, you know, right now, we have all of our busses come back to one lot, or the lot that they're assigned to behind the fence every night. Now we're looking at, okay, if you have something like this, you probably need to have some type of setup to where the bus can stay at a school like, you know, there's a bus that's assigned they do their route every day, but they're assigned to stay at this school. It seems simple, but a lot of things in the school system because of how it's been done. It's not. It just takes educating people at getting people to to see where we're moving. Those are things that we definitely have started to to look at, and folks have come in to talk to us about it.
No, I really appreciate that, and generally appreciate your willingness just to tell us how it's going. And this stuff is new, and learning from other people's challenges and things that you've overcome, I think. Some of the stuff that's hardest to find out there in the market. With that in mind, as you're thinking of other people, I know you'll get in. You probably get inundated from other school districts saying, Hey, you guys have more than zero busses. How did you do it? Like you've learned some things. Can you give us a few Do's, Don'ts, you know, you've talked through a few of them in this conversation. But if you had to summarize for your colleagues, what advice would you give them that you wish you would have gotten yourself?
I think it really, really starts with strategic planning on this really be robust and then make it personal. Why do we want to do this? Because then when it becomes personal, the buy in is natural. The buy in is it doesn't seem artificial, and you're able to keep it across administration. So we've had, since the climate change action plan has been in place. We've had three leaders, and the pro the work has continued because it was, you know, it is personal to us. It is deeply rooted, and it will continue. And then, you know, the other one is, you know, the community buy in. Like, what do we why are we doing it? Because they are ultimately funding us. It's either the reaction to your advocacy, or we're telling you, you know, why we feel that this is an important investment of resources. Compartmentalize what you've done abroad, compartmentalize it. Stop trying to boil the ocean. Take a cup and boil that first, I like, that's, that's literally, you know, start somewhere. Once that happens, you're able to build momentum, but then also build advocates that that see the work and that see the, you know, the benefit of the work, just focus on being steady, strategic and deliberate. You could get criticized for a lot of stuff, but usually you'll never get criticized for just be disciplined and strategic and just deliberate. But they say is like, you know, you say the same thing over and over again. People realize that that's a that's important be very intentional with everything that you do. But you know, at the end of the day, enjoy too, like this stuff is pretty cool, like when you get to talking about and you realize how not smart you are, and there are some brilliant people that are doing some incredible things, and their ability to turn that into resources for schools, infrastructure for schools, busses for schools. I like to bear it out on and to see more of that would be the words that I would have for others who to other school districts. For sure.
That's great. Any any materials or websites or anything you would throw anybody to to learn more about what you're doing out there?
Yeah. I mean we our website is www.pgcps.org, everything that I've talked about here, climate change action plan, private financing, any of that stuff is all publicly available on our website. Should folks have questions or need to to know where to find stuff? Please feel free to reach out to me as well. Easy to find jason.washington@pgcps.org and we will love to be a resource for you.
That's great. Well, I really appreciate you taking the time today and telling us a little bit about what's gone out there in Maryland, and wishing you guys nothing but the best of luck as you go to the next stage. It sounds like if I'm doing my math, right? You said about 1000 busses. You're about 3%
the way that we yeah, we will. We will get there. So I we will. We will stay diligent, and it's a marathon, not a race,
yeah? Well, you're 3% further than most school districts, I guess, was going to be my point. So I appreciate that anyway. Thank you a lot. Jason, appreciate
it. Oh, no problem. Thank you,
and that's a wrap. Thanks again to Jason for sharing his perspective on migrating fleets to all electric. This episode was hosted and executive produced by Dave Carl Scott, CO produced by Allison Bruns, Carmela laharde and me will mangrove and was edited by Kristin Crawford. Our theme music is by geo Washington riot and his studio Big Band. If you haven't already, make sure to follow the campus energy sustainability podcast on LinkedIn or blue sky. You can dive deeper into past episodes at Campus energy podcast.com. If you enjoyed today's show, leave us a quick review on your favorite podcast platform. It's fast, it's easy, and it helps spread the word to even more sustainability champions out there. This podcast is brought to you by Brailsford and dunlaid as always. Thanks for listening. You.
