Fairfax County Public Schools, Office of Government Relations

Final Report - Transportation and Food Services 

This report describes all the Transportation and Food Services related legislation considered during the 2024 General Assembly Regular and Special Sessions.  Bills are listed as “Passed”, “Failed” or “Continued to 2025”.

Passed legislation will go into effect on July 1, 2024, unless otherwise specified in the legislation itself.

Bills identified as Continued to 2025 are no longer active for the 2024 Session but can be picked back up by the continuing committee where they were left off in the legislative process during the 2025 Session.  While possible, it is rare for a continued bill to be picked back up. Typically, such legislation is simply reintroduced in the next Session.

UPDATED: 05/29/2024

Transportation and Food Services – Passed

Farm to school programs Task Force; guidance and resources HB 830 (Cousins) and SB 314 (Roem) require the Department of Education to establish and appoint such members as it deems necessary or appropriate to the Farm to School Program Task Force for the purpose of increasing student access throughout the Commonwealth to high-quality farm to school programs, defined in the bill as programs (i) whereby public schools purchase and feature prominently in school meals locally produced food or (ii) that involve experiential student learning opportunities relating to local food and agriculture, including school and community garden programs and local farm visits. The bills require the Task Force to collaborate with local school boards, community-based organizations, farmers, relevant state and local agencies, and other relevant stakeholders to (a) assess existing farm to school programs within the Commonwealth to identify and disseminate to each local school board best practices for implementing and sustaining such programs, (b) establish and distribute to each local school board a guidance document for the establishment and operation of school garden programs, (c) provide information and resources to each local school board to assist it in leveraging grant funds to support farm to school programs, and (d) collect such data and make such policy recommendations to local school boards, the Board of Education, and the General Assembly as it deems appropriate.

Commercial driver's licenses & learner's permits; definitions, training, drug & alcohol violations HB 844 (Austin) and SB 353 (French) conform the definition of commercial motor vehicle to federal regulations, codifies the entry-level driver training system required by federal regulations, and removes contradictory provisions. The bills also prohibit the issuance or continued validity of commercial driver's licenses and commercial learner's permits after a drug or alcohol violation by the applicant, licensee, or permittee. 

Innovative alternative school transportation; school boards to implement low/no-cost alternatives HB 937 (LeVere Bolling) states that the intent of the General Assembly is that school boards encourage the implementation of innovative low-cost or no-cost alternatives to transporting students to and from school on school buses, including organizing or otherwise facilitating, encouraging, or supporting biking or walking school buses whereby groups of students ride bicycles or walk to and from school.

School bus video-monitoring system; citations HB 1362 (Maldonado) prohibits a contract between a private vendor and a school division for the operation of school bus video-monitoring systems to capture passing stopped school bus violations from requiring a minimum quota of violations captured or citations issued for the video-monitoring system to be deployed.

Free school meals; work group to study offering to students statewide SB 283 (Roem) requires the Superintendent of Public Instruction, in coordination Secretary of Education, to convene a stakeholder work group to study the estimated impact of offering free school meals to students statewide, identify options for reducing or eliminating student and school meal debt, and make recommendations on options for leveraging other programs funded at state and federal levels for the provision of student school meals. The bill requires the work group to report on its findings and recommendations to the Joint Subcommittee on Elementary and Secondary Education Funding by November 1, 2024.

School buses; increases maximum width of vehicles SB 572 (Obenshain) increases from 100 inches to 102 inches the maximum total outside width permitted for school buses.

Transportation and Food Services – Continued to 2025 or Failed

Composting programs in local school divisions HB 166 (Keys-Gamarra) would have required the Department of Education to develop, post in a publicly accessible format and location on its website, and make available to any school board, upon request, guidance and resources relating to the establishment of local experiential learning programs on the composting of organic material, including food waste, for sustainable purposes such as horticulture or micro-farming, including guidance and resources on available grants and other sources of funding for such programs.

Commercial driver's license; DMV to convene a work group to develop & implement strategy to promote HB 505 (Cohen) would have directed the Department of Motor Vehicles to convene a work group to develop and implement a statewide strategy to incentivize and promote the issuance of commercial driver's licenses to qualified applicants in the Commonwealth.

School meals; availability at no cost to students HB 686 (Bennett-Parker) would have provided that each school board shall require each public elementary and secondary school in the local school division to participate in the federal National School Lunch Program and the federal School Breakfast Program administered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture or in the Community Eligibility Provision (CEP) as provided in relevant law, if applicable, and to make lunch and breakfast available to any student who requests such a meal at no cost to the student, unless the student's parent has provided written permission to the school board to withhold such a meal from the student. The bill also would have required the Department of Education to reimburse each public elementary and secondary school for each school breakfast and lunch served to a student, with a maximum of one breakfast and one lunch per student per school day and provides the formula for determining the state reimbursement rate for such meals. The bill contained provisions directing each school board to adopt policies and procedures aimed at maximizing access to federal funds available for the cost of participating in school breakfast and lunch programs and maximizing determinations of student eligibility for federal free or reduced cost meal reimbursements rates and participation in CEP. The bill also would have lowered the minimum identified student percentage for a school to be eligible to participate in CEP from 40 to 25 percent in accordance with the updated federal CEP regulations (7 C.F.R. § 245.9(f)(3)(i)). The bill also would have required the Secretary of Education, in coordination with the Secretary of Finance, to convene a stakeholder work group to study and make recommendations on ways to avoid or mitigate the impact of offering statewide free school breakfast and lunches on other state-funded programs and to submit a report on such findings and recommendations by January 15, 2025, to the Senate Committee on Education and Health and the House Committee on Education. The bill also would have repealed provisions of law relating to the federal School Breakfast Program and to school meal debt that are rendered obsolete by the provisions of the bill.

Expands availability of allowable alternatives for pupil transportation HB 842 (Austin) and SB 431 (Suetterlein) would have expanded the availability of allowable alternatives to traditional school bus transportation services relating to the transportation of students to and from school or school-related activities, including permitting any school board of a school division for which providing transportation by school bus is not cost effective to use a portion of its transportation funding to provide a grant to any parent of a student who provides student transportation to and from school, subject to certain conditions enumerated in the bill. HB 842 was Continued to 2025 in Senate Education and Health while SB 431 was Continued to 2025 in Senate Finance and Appropriations.

School board policy on excess food donation HB 963 (Earley) would have required the Department of Education to survey each school board to determine (i) whether it has an existing policy or practice relating to the donation of excess food, as that term is defined in relevant law, from public elementary or secondary schools in the local school division to local food banks or shelters that serve meals or otherwise provide food to individuals in need and (ii) if so, how such policy or practice is implemented and the impact that it has on the local community. The bill would have required the Department of Education, after completing such survey, to compile in a guidance document or Superintendent's Memo and distribute to each school board a list of resources and best practices on the subject of excess food donation.

Compost and other products containing organic soil amendments infrastructure; civil penalty SB 329 (Surovell) would have allowed a locality by ordinance to require certain generators, as defined in the bill, of large quantities of organic waste to separate the organic waste from other solid waste and ensure that the organic waste is diverted from final disposal in a refuse disposal system. The bill would have allowed a locality to establish civil penalties for violations of such ordinance but requires the locality to issue a warning to a generator that violates the ordinance prior to collecting such a civil penalty. Finally, the bill expressed that it is the intent of the General Assembly that new public school buildings and facilities and improvements and renovations to existing public school buildings and facilities include waste disposal infrastructure, as defined in the bill. Note that SB 329 passed the General Assembly but was vetoed by the Governor.