This photo shows the California State Capitol building. (File photo by Anda Chu, Bay Area News Group)
Across California, school districts contract with transportation companies to help transport students to and from school or other locations for extracurricular activities.
Typically, the sort of vehicles these companies use are vans or standard sedans.
What could possibly be objectionable about that?
Well, leave it to the California Legislature to take up legislation, sponsored by an array of public sector unions, which would impose a litany of mandates and restrictions on such transportation arrangements which seem designed to crush them.
Essentially, it entails imposing commercial bus driver standards, training requirements and caps on hours.
The legislation, Senate Bill 88, introduced by Sen. Nancy Skinner, D-Berkeley, has already been approved by the California Senate.
“Placing commercial bus driver standards on staff who are driving passenger vans, will not increase safety, but it will make it more difficult to fill these positions and have an incredibly chilling impact on student activities that are critical to student engagement and success in school,” argues a coalition of organizations in opposition to SB 88.
This includes the California School Boards Association, Los Angeles County Office of Education, the Orange County Department of Education and the Riverside County Office of Education.
In a statement from the latter county office of education this editorial board was told the bill would “place at risk many of the transportation options that are currently available to our students with the greatest needs” and could “impact school staff who frequently transport students to academic and sporting events in regular passenger vans.”
The coalition of opponents also notes the bill comes at a time when school districts are already experiencing a shortage of qualified bus drivers as it is, so trying to mandate bus driver requirements on non-bus drivers is particularly risky for many districts.
Finally, the opponents note that transportation companies contracted with by school districts are already regulated by the Public Utilities Commission, so this bill is simply about piling on redundant and even harmful regulations.
The Legislature has actual problems to solve. This isn’t one of them. Reject SB 88.
