Irvine School Board OKs Helmet Policy : Rule: Decision requires elementary students who bike to school to wear helmets unless their parents sign waivers.

All elementary school students must wear helmets when riding bicycles to and from school under a new policy adopted Tuesday night by the school board.

“This is something that will really make a significant impact on the safety of our children,” said Margie Wakeham, an Irvine Unified School District board member.

The school board’s unanimous action marks the first time a school district in Orange County has mandated bicycle helmet use at its schools. The district is also the largest known in Southern California requiring helmet use among its bicycling students.

Last year, the 11-school Palos Verdes Peninsula Unified School District adopted a helmet policy that covers students at all grade levels and allows no exemptions.

Under the Irvine policy, students who bicycle to one of the district’s 21 elementary schools must wear a helmet unless their parents have signed a waiver exempting them from the rule.

The policy will take effect in October or November to give principals time to notify students and parents of the helmet rule through school assemblies and by sending home letters, said Dennis Gibbs, Irvine’s director of elementary school education. The district’s bicycle helmet policy covers about 6,500 children in third to sixth grades. Younger students may not ride bicycles to school under existing rules.

The Irvine school board initially considered making the helmet requirement mandatory when it introduced the policy last month. But board members said they believed some parents would rebel against a heavy-handed mandate and be more willing to comply with an optional rule.

Supt. David E. Brown endorsed making the policy optional as a way to encourage a higher level of compliance. An optional rule also will reduce the potential for a parent suing the district, he said.

Two elementary schools in Irvine, Los Naranjos and El Camino Real, tested the helmet policy last school year by mandating helmet use among student bicyclists. The test produced 100% compliance and favorable reactions from parents, Los Naranjos principal Bruce Baron said last month. Before the policy, few students at the school ever wore helmets, he said.

Schools will assist parents unable to purchase helmets for their children, Gibbs said.

The school district is working with the Police Department and local bicycle clubs to provide helmets on loan, Gibbs said, but the details still need to be settled.

Under the helmet policy, elementary school students caught riding to school with no helmet and without a parental waiver will be told to walk the bicycle home after school and not ride it back without a helmet, Gibbs said.