WELLINGTON COUNTY – Not knowing if their school bus will be arriving to pick them up at the beginning of the day is becoming a regular concern for some local students and their parents.
During a Feb. 22 Upper Grand District School Board (UGDSB) meeting, trustees raised concerns over regular bus route cancellations in certain areas.
During the board’s regular COVID-19 update, the UGDSB executive team provided trustees with an update on all things pandemic related, including the current bus driver shortage facing many boards across the province.
“While our absences have been trending in the direction we want it to, transportation still is an area that we know is difficult despite all of the efforts in terms of mitigating [and] ensuring that busses are there on time in the morning and in the afternoon,” said UGDSB director of education Peter Sovran.
Superintendent of finance Glen Regier said bus driver availability continues to be a challenge overall but he noted the pandemic and isolation requirements have had an additional impact on the availability.
“We have seen an improvement as far as in number of cancelled routes … but unfortunately, they’re still in place,” Regier said.
“We continue to monitor each week and we try to identify … routes, so that we can communicate out to families directly so if there’s alternative plans that can be made, they can be put in place.
“So we’re continuing to monitor that and hoping for improvements but unfortunately there’s not a fast way as far as improving the situation.”
Trustee Lynn Topping noted UGDSB schools in Dufferin County are experiencing a lot of issues with transportation.
“For the last three and a half weeks, five bus routes have been cancelled,” she pointed out. “All three high schools in Dufferin have been affected by this.
“Again, I understand the driver shortage, I understand COVID, but we have to do something,” she said. “The parents are angry, they’re frustrated.”
Regier acknowledged the Dufferin area in particular has been largely affected by the shortages.
(Screenshot from the Feb. 22 UGDSB meeting)
“Our bus providers are regional … and that has been one area where there’s been additional challenges as far as accessing bus drivers,” he explained.
“We’re having to make the difficult decisions for cancellations of routes.”
He noted the rationale for cancelling some secondary routes in advance was to ensure more bus driver availability for elementary schools to allow for less of a disruption in the elementary panel. He added the board has been reviewing routes that have either been cancelled or delayed and trying to avoid them so it’s not the same students that are continuously impacted.”
In addition to the pandemic impact, Regier noted recruiting and retraining additional bus drivers to fill in has also been a challenge.
“Efforts to look at what else can be done is ongoing but we acknowledge, and we know the frustration that is out there as far as for all impacted by the cancellation of the routes,” he said.
“It doesn’t help me with families,” Topping responded, adding families have tried carpooling and parents have changed hours of work.
Trustee Gail Campbell echoed Topping’s comments, noting the cancellations are extremely difficult.
“Every week we are getting notice of those schools that are not being serviced,” she said. “This is an ongoing problem. It isn’t that it only happens once – it’s every week.”
Sovran said the board is working to communicate with families and notify them in advance of cancellations so they can prepare alternate arrangements.
“It is regrettable,” he said. “It is something that we certainly wish we had a solution to.” He noted UGDSB is currently sharing this issue with boards across the province.
“That’s no comfort when your school bus doesn’t come and is cancelled over and over again,” he acknowledged. “It is a very considerable problem and one unfortunately that is not evenly distributed across our school board and likely in others.”
Asked if there have been any route cancellations in Wellington County, UGDSB spokesperson Heather Loney said in an email there have been some bus routes that were proactively cancelled affecting Erin District High School (EDHS).
Loney said EDHS has experienced six route cancellations between Jan. 26 to March 1 – almost one every week.
Loney confirmed the Erin high school is the only Wellington County school that has had routes cancelled.
City of Guelph’s secondary schools have also had eight cancellations between the period of Jan. 26 to Feb. 18.
“The school board is working actively with our transportation consortium and bus operators to reduce the need to proactively cancel bus routes,” Loney explained.
Loney noted bus driver availability became a larger issue during the Omicron wave of the pandemic.
