President's Message
August 28, 2025
Welcome back, and I hope each of you are doing well and that you had a great start to the 2025-2026 school year. I know challenges persist but keep your heads held high. You should be proud of the accomplishments you and your teams make every day!
I know several of you have questions about SB 546, which is effective September 1, 2025. In short, this bill, which was passed in the regular session of the 89th Texas Legislature, applies to the requirement for school buses to include three-point seat belts for each passenger, regardless of model year.
Let me go over some key points of this legislation. First, the seat belt requirement does not apply to a bus operated by or contracted for use by a district if the district’s school board determines:
- that the district’s budget does not permit the district to purchase a bus that has three-point seat belts; or
- if the warranty for the bus would be voided if the bus was retrofitted with three-point seat belts.
Note that a school district may accept gifts, grants, and donations from any public or private source.
If your school board determines that your district’s budget is insufficient to purchase school buses with three-point seat belts, your district is required to submit to the Texas Education Agency (TEA) and present in a public meeting of the Board a report that includes the number of buses operated by or contracted for use by the district that:
- do not have seat belts;
- have two-point seat belts;
- have three-point seat belts; and
- the estimated cost to the district to equip each bus that is operated by or contracted for use by the district with three-point seat belts that does not have them.
The report must be submitted to TEA and presented in a public meeting of the board not later than the end of the 2025-2026 school year.
Finally, the legislation requires the TEA to compile all the information collected by the school districts and to calculate the total amount of financial need for all school districts to come to compliance with this legislation. The TEA is also directed to summarize the information and provide it to the governor, the lieutenant governor, the speaker of the house of representatives, and each member of the legislature by January 1, 2027. We are awaiting guidance on how TEA wants this information to be reported.
I would encourage each of you to begin collecting data on your fleet, including knowing the number of buses you have that would not meet the above requirements. Understandably, it will take time for all school districts and school buses to be in compliance with this legislation, just as it will take time for our vendors to work with us to meet the needs and demands that will be expected with this legislation.
While the legislation specifically mentions warranty, we want to encourage all districts to work closely with your vendors to ensure that any retrofitting meets all Texas state specifications, industry standards, and is certified by the manufacturer.
School districts are expected to comply with the three-point seat belt requirement on all school buses before September 1, 2029.
We will continue to work to find common solutions as an organization for our members as more information becomes available.
Thank you,
Kayne Smith, Ed.D.
President
Texas Association for Pupil Transportation