Marion County School Board to Vote Oct. 13 on 22 New School Buses Costing $3.9 Million

The Marion County School Board is set to vote on Tuesday, Oct. 13, 2026, on buying 22 new school buses for a combined $3,915,796. The purchase is split into two items on the regular (discussion) agenda for the 5:30 p.m. meeting at the district office, 1614 E. Fort King St., Ocala, FL 34471, according to the meeting agenda posted on the district's BoardDocs site.

Both items use a Florida Department of Education bid, ITB 2026-07, rather than a separate district bid, and both list the Capital Projects Fund as the funding source. The agenda marks both as budgeted. Each bus would come with GPS and bus cameras pre-installed, and lifts where noted.

The two purchases

• Item D20.3, six buses from Sun State International Truck, LLC: $1,059,628. Four 77-passenger buses at $174,667 each ($698,668) and two 77-passenger buses with wheelchair lifts at $180,480 each ($360,960). The dealer's quote, from its Tampa office, is for an International (IC) 77-passenger Type C bus with a Cummins engine. The $174,667 price includes a $138,251 base bus, an air-conditioning unit, six integrated child restraint seats, the camera and GPS package, and a $5,000 surcharge for 2027 emissions standards.


• Item D20.4, 16 buses from Matthews Bus Alliance, Inc.: $2,856,168. Nine 77-passenger buses at $179,091 each ($1,611,819), six 77-passenger buses with lifts at $185,677 each ($1,114,062), and one 14-passenger Collins Type A bus with a lift at $130,287. The quote for the 77-passenger buses is for a Thomas 341TS body on a Freightliner B2 chassis with a Cummins engine, and the quote for the small bus is for a Collins body on a Chevrolet G3500 chassis with a 6.6-liter gas engine. The agenda notes that $205,989.28 had already been encumbered this fiscal year when the item was submitted.

The two items together cover 15 standard 77-passenger buses, six 77-passenger lift buses and one small lift bus. The agenda says the purchases will let the Transportation Department "continue to provide efficient, monitored transportation to and from school and school-related activities for all students across the District." Neither item lists a prior board action, and neither says which buses in the current fleet the new ones would replace. No delivery date is published.

Expulsions on the same agenda

The Oct. 13 agenda also asks the board to approve the expulsion with services of nine students for the rest of the 2026-27 school year and the first quarter of 2027-28. Students expelled with services are moved out of their regular school into an alternative program; the agenda says services "may include a disciplinary program or referred to the criminal or juvenile justice system." Students are identified on the agenda only by case number.

The district's student discipline report attached to the item, covering incidents dated through Sept. 8, 2026, lists 23 expulsions year-to-date for the 2026-27 school year. All 10 expulsions on this meeting's report are with services through Bridgeway Academy; none are without services. By grade, the year-to-date expulsions run from fourth grade through 12th, with the largest number (five) in seventh grade. The same report lists 68 alternative placements at Bridgeway Academy so far this year, 26 of them on this meeting's list. The most common infraction on this meeting's report is fighting, with seven cases.

Earlier this school year the board voted to approve one expulsion on Sept. 8 (for the full 2026-27 year) and six on Sept. 22, according to the motions and votes recorded on BoardDocs for those meetings. The discipline report's count of expulsions for this meeting (10) is one higher than the nine case numbers on the Oct. 13 action item, and the agendas do not explain how the report's year-to-date total of 23 is counted.

How to follow the vote

The meeting begins at 5:30 p.m. The agenda includes one public-comment period for agenda items and a later one for other district matters; for the agenda-item period, speakers must complete a request form and are limited to three minutes. Agendas, attachments and, after the meeting, recorded votes are posted on BoardDocs. For more on local schools, see the Only In Ocala Marion County schools directory and the guide to Ocala schools. Other recent school board coverage includes the South Marion High School field repair.

Only In Ocala will update this story with the board's votes.

Sources: School Board of Marion County agendas on BoardDocs for the Oct. 13, 2026 meeting (items D20.3, D20.4 and 19.1) and the Sept. 8 and Sept. 22, 2026 meetings; dealer quotes from Sun State International Truck, LLC and Matthews Bus Alliance, Inc. attached to items D20.3 and D20.4; and the Student Discipline Report for the Oct. 13, 2026 meeting. Checked Oct. 12, 2026.