"We're not talking about your family's Ford Taurus going down the road," Davis School District spokesman Chris Williams said.

He and education officials throughout the state probably wish they were.

Utah achieved record highs Tuesday for the prices of regular unleaded gas ($2.473) and diesel ($2.825), the fuel most school buses use.

With prices expected to continue climbing, many Utah school district administrators are increasing student field-trip fees, allocating more budget money for transportation and planning to ask the Legislature for additional funding.

Rob Smith, Alpine School District's business administrator, is collecting data from Utah districts to provide the information to state lawmakers.

"If they're not looking at increasing the funding for transportation," he says, "then they have to look at eliminating or modifying the mandate to provide transportation to and from school."

He and his colleagues also have begun - some as early as last year - to change the way they run their school buses.

They have no choice:

* Alpine's transportation cost per mile last academic year was $3.28, compared with the $2.50 that officials had projected.

* Granite officials watched fuel prices rise from $1.22 per gallon in 2003-04 to $1.60 in 2004-05. Overall, the cost of fuel rose from about $394,000 to about $570,000 during that period. Last year at this time, fuel cost $1.60. This year, it costs $1.99.

* Davis officials experienced an increase in fuel costs of about $289,000 from 2003-04 to 2004-05. They budgeted $650,000 for this year, but aren't sure if it will be enough.

Alpine students and athletes might find bus seats a lot more crowded. One of Smith's considerations is putting as many pupils on buses as possible without keeping them in the vehicles too long. Another is combining two teams, such as tennis and softball, on the same bus if both have competitions scheduled against the same school.

Students in most districts also will pay a higher transportation fee to events. In Alpine, the amount of that fee will vary depending on the cost of fuel, how many students participate and the distance to the event. Davis principals received a letter last week from the district's director of transportation, Brian Larsen, informing them that school athletic and field-trip rates will increase from $1.50 per mile to $1.75 per mile.

Granite's director of transportation, Tom Given, initiated a training program last year that taught drivers various fuel-efficiency strategies:

l Turning the engine off while waiting for kids to board;

l Drivers mingling in one running vehicle to keep warm in the cold;

l And braking and accelerating smoothly and slowly.

mcronin@sltrib.com