Ensign Intermediate bike racks sit nearly empty one week into the school year, two parents say. The drop-off line now stretches 30 minutes because students who once rode e-bikes to campus have nowhere to park them.

Alex Williamson and Sarah Middleton, Costa Mesa parents of Ensign students, published an op-ed in Voice of OC on Thursday, Aug. 27, calling on the Newport-Mesa Unified School District board to rescind Policy 5142.04. The policy, adopted in a 6-1 vote in April, bans e-bikes, electric scooters and electric boards from all K-8 campuses by denying riders access to campus bike racks.

"The school board didn't make anyone safer," Williamson and Middleton wrote. "Instead, trustees relocated the risk somewhere they have no authority to manage."

The ban took effect Monday, Aug. 17, the first day of the 2026-27 school year. NMUSD is the first district in California to prohibit electric transports for younger students, according to district spokesperson Annette Franco, as reported by GovTech.

Ensign serves nearly 900 students across two grades, with some traveling up to four miles from Newport Beach and Costa Mesa. Before the ban, the campus rule was simple: walk your bike on campus, park it in the rack. That applied equally to pedal bikes and e-bikes.

The op-ed authors argue the new policy doesn't regulate behavior on school property. Instead, it punishes students for what they ride on public streets, a domain governed by the California Vehicle Code and enforced by city police. They also contend the ban removed the district's ability to require e-bike riders to complete safety courses, since those students no longer park on campus.

Parent Bill Johns told the OC Register that on the first day of school, parents waited in cars for 30 minutes to drop off and pick up children. The op-ed also cites a CBS News interview with a separate Ensign parent who said she is now late to work every day because of backed-up traffic.

The board voted 6-1 in April to adopt the policy. Trustee Ashley Anderson cast the lone dissenting vote, arguing at the time that regulating e-bikes and improving transportation infrastructure is the role of cities, not school districts, according to a Daily Pilot column. Trustees who voted in favor cited data from the Newport Beach Police Department and Hoag Hospital showing a mounting number of e-bike accidents and injuries.

Under the ban, e-bikes found parked on campus are locked by school personnel, and parents must come to retrieve them, Franco said.

Williamson and Middleton are calling on the board to restore bike-rack access and work with Newport Beach and Costa Mesa on bike infrastructure and Safe Routes to School planning near Ensign, an approach they attribute to Anderson.

No district response to the op-ed's specific claims appeared in public records as of Thursday. Whether rescission of Policy 5142.04 will appear on a future board agenda has not been announced.