Are School Bus Evacuation Drills Useless?
Written by Deborah J Thomas
Filed under: Administrators, High School, K-6, News, People Involved, School bus safety, School Grade Level, School Safety Issues, Students
Did you know that school children across the United States are required by law to participate in school bus evacuation drills twice a year? There is actually a law that was approved in 2007 that requires these drills to be carried out. The law was passed with the idea that all students should know what to do in case an emergency involving school buses occurs.
In Dallas, however, there is some noise being made about this law. Take the example of the Highland Park school district. The students in this school district rarely ride school buses, if at all. Indeed, the district had to rent school buses in order to be able to carry out the drills. And they are not alone facing this situation. As a matter of fact, many other school districts in the state are complaining about the situation.
The complaints have reached such a degree that many lawmakers in Texas are proposing bills that would either amend or repeal the law. According to Rep. Helen Giddings, a Democrat from Dallas, the school authorities are saying that the drills are “cumbersome and not necessary.” She also says that “if the districts have measures in place they believe protect children just as well, I’m willing to repeal it.”
On the other hand, there are lawmakers who think that the drills are still necessary. We have people like Steven Polunsky, who is the director of the Senate transportation committee, who says that the drills are not excessive and that even if school children ride buses only sporadically, they still need to know what to do in case of an emergency.
I tend to agree with the opinion of Polunksy and others like him. While I understand that the drills may be a logistic nightmare for some school districts, especially for those who have students who rarely ride school buses at all, it is still better to deal with this kind of nightmare than to have to face a tragic accident. In my opinion, just because children ride school buses only once or twice a year, it does not mean that they might not have the need to exercise the safety measures that can be learned from the drills. And after all, the drills are only done twice a year! It cannot be that bad, right? If the budget and the logistics really call for less drills, then maybe they can lessen the frequency to once a year.
What do you think?
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