[Update: 11 a.m.]: Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District Superintendent Dr. Ben Drati announced that the district’s buses will be running for the first day of school tomorrow, Aug. 23.
In a letter shared by the district, Dr. Drati stated that the buses will run on Thursday and Friday of this week, which will include service for special education students and students attending Malibu High and Webster Elementary schools.
Though the buses are not yet equipped with California law-mandated child safety alert systems, the letter read: “Every bus will have a staff member, in addition to the bus driver, to check our buses carefully, every row and every seat, in lieu of the safety device, to ensure every student has exited following morning drop off and afternoon drop off.”
The district aims to have the devices installed in school buses sometime this weekend.
Local parents are being asked to establish alternative arrangements for their kids’ pick up and drop off situation if they take the bus. The situation will directly affect students attending Webster Elementary School and Malibu High who ride the school buses.
According to information shared by the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District, the district buses may not be operational due to requirements from Senate Bill 1072.
The bill, which went into effect on July 1, requires school buses “to be equipped with a ‘child safety alert system,’ which is a device located at the interior read of a vehicle that requires the driver to either manually contact or scan the device before exiting the vehicle, thereby prompting the driver to inspect the entirety of the interior of the vehicle before exiting.”
The school district, in a letter from Chief Operations Officer Carey Upton, said that it and 150 other school districts were unable to have the devices installed by the start of the school year (Aug. 23 for SMMUSD). It attributes the delay to “the delay in developing certified devices, the lack of availability of this new advice and the shortage of qualified installers.”
The statement goes on to say that the school district has a required procedure in place for bus drivers to inspect buses following every trip.
“We appreciate the efforts of Senator Ben Allen, Senator Henry Stern and Assembly member Richard Bloom, who have been seeking an extension to this bill. We are hopeful that an extension then signed by Governor Jerry Brown, in the next few days or weeks,” Upton wrote.