Now that a legislative review committee has approved the bus seat belt rule from the Iowa Department of Education, and with it will come a learning curve for bus drivers.

Effective October 1st, any newly manufactured school buses in Iowa must have seat belts installed in them. Greene County School Board President Dr. Mark Peters says the new rule will take additional training for district employees who are involved in operating a bus.

“It’s not just a black and white issue like a lot of people think it is. Because there’s different scenarios and things like that, that bus drivers are going to have to be able to respond to. It’s going to take a fair amount of training. If you think about it, if you can fit 80 kids on a bus, somebody’s got to be able to-in an emergency situation-somebody’s got to be able to take those seat belts off, if students themselves can’t do it. It can be a challenge I think.”

The cost for the seat belts is estimated to be about $8,000 per bus. The new rule does not require current buses to be retrofitted with seat belts.