School Board discusses electrifying buses, AI policy

During Tuesday’s Edmonds School Board business meeting, Directors heard a budget update from Executive Director of Business and Finance Lydia Sellie, and also learned more about the potential for eventually electrifying the District’s bus fleet.

Regarding the budget, Sellie said the District was not meeting the state’s K-3 class-size compliance, which should be about 17 students to one teacher. 

“After the last adjustments were made, we met K-3 compliance at 16.96 so that increases our funding starting next month,” she said.

However, Sellie said fuel costs are a “major concern” for the District, adding it is difficult to project how long fuel prices are going to stay high. Daily bus operations are funded from the District’s general fund, she said, while the transportation vehicle fund is used only for buying or major repairs of buses.

“On the bright side, [the budget is] tracking very closely for this time of year with the previous year. Our expectation is that the fund balance position will improve based on this trend line,” she said.

Director Keith Smith asked a question about the process for acquiring electric school buses. Sellie replied that Washington state funds bus replacement through a long-term depreciation model, and has changed three criteria for bus replacements:

• For large buses, the funding period has been extended from 13 years to 15 years.
• For small buses, the funding period has been  extended from eight years to 10 years.

Sellie also noted that electric buses cost between $350,000 and $400,000 each. The state cut the funding to about one-third, and for the next two years, the state cannot fund them.

“The Legislature needed to make cuts to the statewide budgets,” Sellie told My Neighborhood News Group. “They chose to reduce ‘depreciation’ for school district buses by nearly $26 million.”

Sellie told the Directors the School District is relying on grants instead of regular state depreciation funding for school bus purchases, but noted that Edmonds is “not in a region that typically” wins those grants. She added that electrification is “never off our radar.”

“The state just kind of kicked up a new problem, which is these [electric buses] are very expensive to provide an allocation through depreciation. So we’re just going to slow that down for two years because we’ve got some budget difficulties of our own,” Sellie said.

In addition to the cost of electric buses, Sellie said the School District would need to work with the local utility to ensure there are enough charging stations and power for an electric bus fleet.

“The buses that are available in Washington state take about 13 hours to fully charge, so they aren’t very efficient in between runs,” Sellie said. “So it is not a matter of if we’ll do it. It just comes down to a matter of when.”

Regarding enrollment, Sellie said the District experienced an “unusual” enrollment drop from January to February, with a net decrease of 89 students. She said the largest single decline was nine students at one elementary school, while high schools showed the biggest overall decreases. Reasons for the decrease include students moving to nearby school districts or to another state or country.

Sellie noted an increase in students enrolled in the District’s Alternative Learning Experience (ALE) programs, such as seven students at Edmonds Heights and 20 at Edmonds eLearning Academy. She said she plans to recheck the data from February to March and compare it to the same period last year.

Earlier in the meeting, Sellie received the 2026 WASBO School Business Official of the Year for her exceptional leadership, integrity and innovation in school finance. 

“I just want to thank you for this,” Sellie said. “I was very surprised when it happened.”

Legislative update

Board Director Thom Garrard summarized proposed legislation and regulation around artificial intelligence in schools that was discussed during the recent Washington State School Directors’ Association (WSSDA) meeting. He said the regulatory framework should ensure that students still develop “critical thinking, reading, problem solving and interpersonal skills” and prevent AI from “eliminating, reducing or replacing the student facing work of education performed by humans.” 

He said the Board should endorse this proposed change so it can be submitted to WSSDA and potentially be taken up at the legislative conference in September.

Garrard also talked about a WSSDA toolkit that helps the Board improve community engagement and legislator relationships and can be downloaded from WSSDA’s website. It also helps boards and advocates better “understand the legislative process,” including how long it can take for an idea to become law, he said.

In addition, Garrard highlighted the nonprofit Washington Schools: Underfunded & Overburdened as a resource for explaining funding gaps, particularly in special education, materials and operations, and transportation. He encouraged Board Directors to use it to inform conversations with state legislators and candidates.

Smith said he has shifted from a “laissez-faire” view of AI usage to increased worry about its impact, and is supporting clearer limits. Director Hawk Cramer said AI is “too new to know just how dangerous it is for our kids” and urged the Board to approach a policy regarding AI in schools with caution.

Student board member Tatiana Lindberg said many students are not ready to manage AI responsibly and that it can reduce independent thinking. She shared an example of in-class tutoring at Edmonds College to help reduce reliance on AI. She also said having assignments on paper helps students retain information better than just a copy-and-paste from Google and AI. “Paper assignments definitely forced me to have more accountability,” she said.

Later, the Directors voted unanimously to approve the recommended position changes to WSSDA’s AI policy.

The School Board approved several facilities and funding actions, including awarding a $589,000 contract to Peak Drywall Solutions to upgrade single-occupancy restrooms at Alderwood Middle School and Mountlake Terrace High School, and a $562,228 contract to North Coast Electric for LED lighting upgrades at Meadowdale Middle School. 

In addition, the Board accepted completion of the Mountlake Terrace High School HVAC upgrades project, authorizing final closeout, and approved a resolution allowing up to $250,000 in lease and rental revenue to be redirected from the capital projects fund to the general fund for facility-related expenses.

Public comments

Three family members made public comments about the alleged sexual assault of a kindergarten girl by a 12-year old child on a school bus in mid-April. The girl attends Cedar Way Elementary in Mountlake Terrace.

Cedar Way Elementary released a statement from Principal Chris Lindblom on April 17 that the school is working closely with the Everett Police Department on their investigation and “have applied appropriate discipline measures to ensure the safety of our students.”

“We are not able to share information related to student privacy and discipline matters with anyone except for that student’s legal guardians due to state and federal law,” Lindblom wrote. “Please know that the safety of our students, staff and families is always our first priority. We take every report of harm or threats very seriously and act accordingly. While we are limited in what we can share, I want to be as transparent as possible within those boundaries.”

Everett Police Department spokesperson Natalie Given confirmed that department has received the incident report on April 14 and has been working with the victim’s mother and the school district.