Affectionately known as the "blue bus" and the "green bus," our two buses are used by teachers to transport students to places around the community for classes and events. These well-used 14-passenger buses (vintage early 1990's) have been a challenge to maintain over the years but are very important to our overall school program.
Last week, teacher Eva took her Spanish class to a Latino Market to give students the experience of using their new Spanish language skills for selecting (and eating) foods of another culture. Since we have no space or equipment for physical education at school, every week students are transported to various locations for hikes, Aikido, bowling, and other physical activities.From time to time, three teachers might wish to take their classes out on field trips but one of the three will not be able to do so. Other times, often on a Friday afternoon, we take all-school field trips, which now requires using both buses and several cars to transport everyone--an inconvenient and anti-ecological necessity.
(Depending on where we're going we sometimes can, and do, travel by public transportation.) So our "wish list" includes adding a new low-maintenance bus to our colorful "fleet." 
Our course, there has been some speculation about possible choices for its name ... "the red bus" ... or Eugene's favorite, "the tie-dye bus" are among them (not much interest in "the yellow bus").We've made some efforts to get grants to support the purchase of a new bus but to no avail as yet. Additional grant proposals will be submitted this year and suggestions are invited from readers about sources of funds (and small buses) to meet the transportation needs of our school.
