On Monday November 8th, 2021 the Arizona Expansion and Innovation Fund awarded Osborn School District a fully funded for $2,000,000 grant being one of the innaugural Arizona Transportation Modernication Grant awardees. 

Grant funds will have the objective to accomplish various goals for the school district. These goals include funding for three electric school buses and electric charging stations, Solar coverings for our bus fleet, Mobile data terminals with GPS, tracking, traffic information, and vehicle status, and lastly this will provide funding for the Encanto-Clarendon Safe Routes to School project initiated by community members and parents in their neighborhood. 

Grant amounts ranged from $25,000 to the maximum $2,000,000.  Osborn was one of five awardees to receive the maximum grant award.

On being awarded the grant Dr. Emerald Woodland, Osborn Federal Grants Coordinator and writer of the grant said "It's really rewarding to have worked on this grant opportunity and been selected from a variety of candidates including public schools, charters as well as community organizations. This is a great opportunity for Osborn to modernize some of our transportation offerings for students and families and provide an overall safer and more sustainable transportation reality to our community." 

Dr. Woodland continued by saying "This is truly a robust funding opportunity that will allow us to support our in and out of district boundary students in unique ways. The electric buses have a demonstrated record of helping to reduce carbon emissions. Mobile data terminals with multi-function capacities help with student tracking, required bus safety inspections as well as provide real-time GPS location information to parents and staff. The sidewalk improvements, installation of additional stop signs and speed bumps in the Encanto-Clarendon community will support safer local transportation for our families who are within walking distance of their school sites. Finally, solar shade structures would allow us to cool our buses in a more time efficient manner, thus reducing the diesel fuel costs and extending the life of both our current vehicles and new electric vehicles.  The shade structures would also be a necessary component to assure the length of life of the batteries in the vehicles."

 To see a full list of the awrdees and to see a summary of Osborn's grant, please visit the Transportation and Modernization Grant Awardee Snapshots.