I-Team: ‘Make these busses even safer;’ Looking at 17 school bus safety task force recommendations

DAYTON — Right now, state agencies and Ohio state lawmakers are working to put in place the recommendations of Ohio’s School Bus Safety Working Group.

News Center 7 first reported on Ohio Governor Mike DeWine creating that group just days after 11-year-old Aiden Clark died in a bus crash near Springfield on the first day of school last August. An unlicensed driver crossed the center line, hitting the Northwestern Local Schools bus Clark was riding. The crash killed Clark and sent more than 20 of his classmates to the hospital. After the tragedy, many people called for change.

The News Center 7 I-Team has been closely following the work of Ohio’s school bus safety task force since its first meeting in August 2023. Now, the I-Team’s lead investigative reporter, John Bedell, looked into how the recommendations could make our children safer and examined which ideas were left on the table.

As the I-Team has previously reported, following five months of work, Ohio’s School Bus Safety Working Group released 17 recommendations on how to make school buses in our state safer. You can read the full report here.

“This is a group that looked at it as hard as you could look at it, had the best information, listened to experts, brought a diverse point of view, and came back with these recommendations unanimously,” Governor DeWine said during a news conference in Columbus on January 31 when the group unveiled its final report. “They have given us a blueprint that we should follow. … It’s important, I think, that we as a state begin to raise the bar and make these busses even safer than they are today,” DeWine said.

Mandating seatbelts on buses did not make the list of recommendations.

“When we started the work, I had a preconceived notion, and I know in talking to other members of the working group, they had a pre-conceived notion that there was a good chance we were going to come out the backside with a recommendation mandating putting seatbelts on all school busses,” Ohio Department of Public Safety Director Andy Wilson, who led the working group, said. “However, as a group, after listening to the experts, hearing from our bus drivers, looking at the data – or lack of data – from states that have mandated seatbelts, and listening to school districts who have tried pilot programs on their buses, we became convinced that a statewide mandate of seatbelts on busses is not the most effective use of resources to keep our kids safe. Together the working group decided that the decision to install seatbelts on buses should remain with local school districts who are best situated to understand their unique needs with respect to the safety of their students.”

There was a Miami Valley connection to the working group. Rob Widener is the school bus mechanic for Greenville City Schools. Widener has been a school bus mechanic for more than 40 years and is the current president of the Ohio School Bus Mechanics Association. Widener has also been a firefighter for 35 years.

The I-Team first talked to Widener when he was selected for the working group in August and recently followed up with him about the task force’s final report. “It was really a worthwhile experience to see how this process works and to be a part of it,” Widener told the I-Team. “And, you know, finding out there needs to be more options than just seat belts out there.”

While the group did not recommend a seatbelt mandate for school buses in Ohio, it did include seatbelts on a list of 13 recommended safety features available for buses.

Others include technology to create better visibility around busses like all-LED lights and fully illuminated “School Bus” signs. Other safety features on that list include crash avoidance technology like electronic stability control and lane departure warning systems.

“With safety and technology changing buses need to keep up instead of falling behind like they have for years with cars and everything else,” Widener said.

The working group also said the state should create and fund a needs-based grant program to help districts pay for school bus safety features.

Right now, the Ohio Department of Education and Workforce is surveying districts across the state asking what are their immediate needs for bus safety upgrades. The results from those surveys will help determine funding needs.

The task force also recommended mandating increased yearly training hours for drivers and creating a state wellness program for bus drivers.

While many of the recommendations can be put into place without action from state lawmakers, the state legislature would have to approve spending the money to fund that grant program.

That’s where a legislative plan from Clark County State Representative Bernie Willis comes in.

“We’ve put it on the superintendents of school districts to then look at that list and say, well, what do I need in my school district,” Willis said during an interview with the I-Team last week.

Willis, a Republican from Springfield, is now reworking House Bill 279. It’s a bill he introduced last year (and talked to the I-Team about in November) that will help determine where all that state grant money will come from

“Our goal, obviously, is to make HB 279 into a form that allows for future appropriation and all the things necessary to get that done for the school districts and make our kids safe when they’re on the way to school,” Willis said.

There’s one other recommendation from the task force that would need action from state lawmakers because it would require a law change. The group recommended increasing penalties for drivers who break traffic laws in school zones or around school buses.

State Rep. Willis told the I-Team that will likely not be included in his legislation, HB 279, but instead be part of a separate bill at the Statehouse in Columbus.

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