A BILL to amend and reenact § 22.1-298.6 of the Code of Virginia, relating to school boards; mental health awareness training; full-time school bus drivers.
HB495 amends Virginia’s school board mental health awareness training law to explicitly allow school boards to require full-time school bus drivers to complete a mental health awareness training or similar program at least once. Under current law, school boards must require teachers and other relevant full-time personnel to complete such training; this bill expands the list of personnel a school board may include to cover bus drivers. The bill also directs school boards to provide the training and allows them to use the Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services, community services boards, behavioral health authorities, nonprofit organizations, or other certified trainers, including online modules.
The bill further asks the Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services to consider condensing its existing mental health first aid training into a two-hour module that school boards could use to train full-time bus drivers. This would create a shorter, more practical training option tailored to transportation staff while keeping the training aligned with the state’s mental health awareness goals. The measure is framed as a school safety and student support initiative rather than a broad change to education policy.
HB495 would amend § 22.1-298.6 of the Code of Virginia by adding full-time school bus drivers to the group of school employees who may be required to complete mental health awareness training. It would not mandate training for bus drivers statewide in every case, but it would authorize school boards to adopt such a policy and would encourage a shorter training module for that workforce. The bill would also reinforce the role of DBHDS and other certified providers in delivering training, including through online formats, potentially affecting how school divisions contract for and administer these programs.
The available voting history suggests the bill was received positively in committee, passing the Education and Health committee 15-0 before being continued to the next session. That unanimous vote indicates broad support for the concept of expanding mental health awareness training to school bus drivers. No committee transcript was provided, so there is no recorded debate to indicate significant opposition or concern in the materials supplied.
The main policy question raised by the bill is whether mental health awareness training should be optional or expected for full-time school bus drivers, and whether a shortened two-hour module is sufficient for that purpose. Potential points of contention could include the added administrative burden on school boards, the cost and logistics of training transportation staff, and whether bus drivers should be treated differently from teachers and other school personnel. The bill’s language is permissive for school boards rather than mandatory for all divisions, which may reflect an effort to balance those concerns.