AUSTIN (KXAN) — Nineteen percent of Texas school districts and charters failed to report details on school bus crashes that occurred last school year to the Texas Education Agency. The agency tracks school bus accidents through an annual survey that collects information on accidents involving school district or charter school buses.
Districts and open-enrollment charter schools are supposed to report information showing basic information about crashes – like the type of bus, the number of students and adults involved or injured, and whether passengers were wearing seatbelts at the time of the crash, according to TEA and state statute.
According to a TEA report, not all school districts responded to last year’s survey. The agency’s data shows that 233 districts and charters did not report school bus crash data for the 2022-23 school year.
In 2015, KXAN’s investigative team also found many districts were not reporting school bus crash data to the state because the 2007 law did not have an enforcement mechanism. Some districts previously argued they did not have to submit a report if they had no accidents that year.
The map below shows which school districts did not provide bus accident surveys to the state in the 2022-2023 school year, according to TEA data. The map does not include charter schools. The full list of districts and charter schools that didn’t provide accident data can be seen here.
Pflugerville Independent School District is one of the largest Central Texas school districts that did not report crash data to the state last year. The district said the lack of reporting was an oversight.
“We had a change in leadership in our Transportation Department this past Summer when the report was due, and it was accidentally not submitted,” District spokesperson Tamra Spence said in a statement to KXAN. “Upon learning this today, we have reached out to TEA for steps to rectify this oversight.”
PFISD officials said it’s the first time they have not reported the data, and all other state-required transportation reporting information was submitted.
The 2022-23 school year data showed that no Texas students died in school bus crashes last year. Six students in total were seriously injured in bus crashes last year, but the data does not distinguish whether those six were seriously injured on buses without seatbelts.
The data from last school year also shows that 34 students who were not wearing seatbelts were injured last year on a Texas school bus.