School division working out kinks on long bus rides

Changes were supposed to yield efficiencies when they were made to school bus routes in the Christopher Lake area, but frustrated parents said the opposite has happened.

In a post on the Christopher Lake Public School Facebook page, parent Marlene Fockler-Williams wrote: “Bus times are ridiculous. I am hearing and seeing two hours on the bus after school. My kid’s one hour and 40 minutes.”

Robert Bratvold, Director of Education for Saskatchewan Rivers Public School Division, said routes were adjusted to make them more efficient for students. Last year, seven buses ran throughout the Christopher Lake region but transportation supervisors realized some of them were actually following each other on their routes. This year there are six buses operating in that region.

“We knew we could adjust routes so more students were spending less time on the bus,” Bratvold said.

He also acknowledged the changes could mean some students would spend more time on the bus.

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“Any time you adjust it takes some time to refine [the routes],” he said.

Roy Feschuk, the principal of Christopher Lake School, said he received some phone calls from concerned parents and acknowledged social media posts that reported students spending nearly two hours on the bus just to get home.

“Even though you may live within a 15-minute direct drive to and from school…when you have 25 to 30 kids on the bus who need stops in between…we need to account for those drop off times,” Feschuk said.

The school board does not have a policy on the maximum duration of a bus ride for students, but Bratvold said the target is no more than an hour.

He said there are just over 4,000 students across the school division that are bussed each day and only about a dozen of them spend more than an hour on the bus.

“Those are fairly remote cases, usually,” he said.

The transportation manager for the school division met with Feschuk and bus drivers on Friday to address concerns from parents. They asked the public for patience as they work out the kinks.

“I’m sure it’s going to look different in a week or two from now,” Feschuk said.

teena.monteleone@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @TeenaMonteleone