A group of parents in Miworth is urging the school district to revive courtesy busing between the community and Heritage elementary school.
Eleven students from seven families are currently being driven to Heritage after the school district ended the service starting this month under its policy for families who choose to send their children to out-of-catchment schools.
Miworth is in the catchment area for Quinson elementary school, but just three students are taking the regular bus to that school.
For the three previous years, elementary-age students in Miworth had been given the option of joining the high school-age students on the bus to D.P. Todd secondary school, where a teaching assistant would gather them for a short walk to Heritage, located next door.
Because D.P. Todd's day ended later, they were picked up by a different bus in the afternoon that also serviced Quinson for the trip back home.
But now that possibility is no longer in place.
"My boy started there in Grade 4, now he's in Grade 7, so I guess my only option, if I wanted him bused, would be to take him out after going to Heritage for three years to put him in Quinson for one year," said parent Tim Melanson.
The school district had intended to withdraw the service last September but agreed to keep it in place for the 2010-11 school year after parents contended they were not given enough notice.
However, parents said they backed away from pursuing the matter after a school district official told them during a meeting in June that an after-school service would remain in place.
"We had won half the battle," Melanson said. "A lot of people go to work in the morning so maybe getting to school isn't as tricky but picking up after school is kind of tricky for anybody that works."
But school district superintendent Brian Pepper said no such promise was made and added he double-checked with the official's supervisor.
"There may have been a misunderstanding," Pepper said.
Facing a $500,000 overrun between the amount it receives from the provincial government for busing and the amount it spends on the service, the school district has been taking a harder line on courtesy busing as a way to reduce costs.
The Miworth parents say continuing the service would not impose any additional cost on the school district and add that given only three take the bus to Quinson, that service poses a bigger waste of money. But Pepper begs to differ, noting that the teaching assistant sent out to pick up the students costs money.
Parents have said they are willing to pay extra for the service, but Pepper said granting that possibility is troublesome because it would open the door to similar requests from other parents who choose to send their children to out-of-catchment schools.
And he said there is more available space at Quinson than at Heritage.
Last year, at 435 students, Heritage was at 107 per cent of its capacity and required three portables while Quinson was operating at 49 per cent capacity with 195 students.
The parents plan to launch a formal appeal that could go all the way to school board trustees.
