Students in the Newport-Mesa school district in Southern California are increasingly riding electric bikes to school. But when they return for classes this fall, they’ll face a fresh set of restrictions on who can use them.
The Newport-Mesa district, south of Los Angeles, is one of many developing new policies as kids’ use of e-bikes increase, alongside related crashes, injuries, and traffic problems.
Students of different ages in recent years have been using e-bikes to get around town, at times relying on the motorized bikes to get to school and creating a new challenge for districts: How should they manage the proliferation of e-bikes that, in some cases, travel as fast as 28 mph and in many cases are subject to few state and local regulations on who can use them, and where.
In Newport-Mesa, younger students this fall won’t be allowed to ride the motorized bikes to school, and older students will have to take safety training before they’re allowed to.
E-bikes are bicycles with electric motors and batteries that provide power assistance as users pedal. They come in three different classes, which vary based on the availability of a throttle and the bike’s maximum speed.
Class 1 e-bikes have motors that are pedal-assisted only and have a maximum speed of 20 mph. Class 2 e-bikes come with a throttle that lets riders control the motor without pedaling; these bikes’ speeds also are capped at 20 mph. Class 3 e-bikes reach a maximum speed of 28 mph.
E-bikes of all classes are becoming increasingly popular among adolescents and teens who are not yet old enough to drive, but old enough to have the autonomy to venture into the community—or commute to school—on their own.
But as more students take to e-bikes, schools are struggling to manage bike traffic, prevent children from getting hurt in crashes, and set rules around their use.
The Newport-Mesa district’s approach involves both restrictions and an emphasis on safety training.
After dozens of mishaps involving students on e-bikes in recent years—some resulting in serious injuries and even death—e-bikes will be banned from elementary and middle school campuses beginning next school year, said Deputy Superintendent Kerrie Torres.
High school students will be allowed to ride e-bikes to school, but will first be required to take an annual safety training course through a local organization or the state highway patrol before they can register their bikes to park them on campus.
Those older students who show up on an e-bike without the registration, and younger students who ride e-bikes to school, will be turned away, Torres said.
Elementary and middle school students will also receive safety training through a local organization that covers both traditional bike and e-bike safety, she said.
“While school districts can’t monitor the streets in the time that kids are away from us,” Torres said, “we can provide some structure and training for them to use when they’re away from us.”
As e-bikes take hold, hospital visits increase
As children’s e-bike use has increased quickly in recent years, so have associated injuries.
In a first-of-its-kind study of pediatric e-bike injuries published this year, researchers found that one California emergency department saw 201 children for e-bike injuries in 2025, compared with just one such injury in 2021. E-bike injuries were the top reason for emergency room trauma visits at Rady Children’s Health Orange County in 2025, surpassing falls, motor vehicle collisions, and car vs. pedestrian crashes.
Children who were riding faster-moving e-bikes more commonly sustained injuries that led to hospitalization, as did patients who were not wearing helmets.
“We basically have kids riding vehicles that are much more like motorcycles than bicycles, and many of them have not taken a class on how to ride them safely and don’t know the rules of the road,” one of the study’s leaders, Laura Goodman, said in a news release announcing the study.
E-bikes are often regulated by local governments. School districts that pursue their own policies on the motorized two-wheelers parallel local rules.
The Poway school district north of San Diego has banned e-bike use on elementary campuses, in accordance with city regulations that prohibit kids younger than 12 from using e-bikes.
In Orange County, Fla., commissioners are considering a local e-bike policy, with feedback from local school district officials who say that nearly 12,000 students—more than 5% of the county’s enrolled students—use e-bikes and e-scooters to get to school. District leaders say middle school students are the most frequent users.
In Long Island, N.Y., Hicksville and Mount Sinai schools in the past year have banned e-bikes and e-scooters on campuses, citing state law that bars kids younger than 16 from operating them.
The policies were announced after multiple local e-bike crashes, one of which killed a 14-year-old Long Island teen who was riding his e-bike to school.
Even districts that haven’t gone so far as to develop explicit e-bike policies have begun sharing safety information with students and families. Some require students to register their e-bikes with the school, and some require kids to attend a safety course before they can ride their e-bikes to school.
While school districts can't monitor the streets in the time that kids are away from us, we can provide some structure and training for them to use when they're away from us.
The Menlo Park City school district, south of San Francisco, in recent years noted an uptick in students riding motorized bikes and scooters to school. Its leaders determined that many of the problems with unsafe riding and crashes stemmed from students riding devices called e-motos, which are more akin to dirt bikes and can reach higher speeds than e-bikes, according to Superintendent Kristen Gracia.
E-motos are typically treated as motorcycles and require a license to drive, but the rules are not commonly known, Gracia said.
“Because both illegal e-motos and legal Class 2 e-bikes operate using throttles, they appeared practically identical,” Gracia said in an email to Education Week. “It became too difficult for school staff to visually distinguish between them, making it impossible to safely enforce the rules.”
In 2025, the district passed a new policy prohibiting students under 16 from riding most motorized bikes to school. Only Class 1 e-bikes—those that lack a throttle and reach a maximum of 20 mph—are allowed, but students have to walk them onto campus and park them in designated areas, according to the district’s policy.
Torres, the Newport-Mesa deputy superintendent, urged districts to keep tabs on local hospitals’ youth e-bike crash data and work closely with law enforcement to determine the best approach to managing kids’ use.
“When you hear, ‘Oh, kids are crashing on e-bikes,’ people believe it’s happening elsewhere,” Torres said. “But the truth is, it’s in our own backyard.”
