School District No. 57 (SD57) is still facing challenges with its school bus service, and this week saw two routes to the communities of Bear Lake and Salmon Valley cancelled.
A nationwide school bus driver shortage was blamed for a number of cancelled routes on the first day of school in September.
Since then, SD57’s contractor, First Student Inc., made route combinations to respond to the sudden reduction in their driver complement and said it was actively recruiting new drivers.
Now more than two months into the school year, students and families are still facing a number of cancelled routes. There are currently five cancelled routes listed on SD57’s website.
“I can tell you that we are disappointed in the level of service that our contractor has been giving to the community,” said assistant superintendent Lee Karpenko.
“We're looking over the contract because we're unhappy with the service as of right now. They're certainly trying, and they're certainly responsive. We just want to make sure that we're doing everything in our power to serve the community, especially the longer run of Bear Lake and Salmon Valley.”
First Student took over the school bussing contract this year from Diversified Transportation, which had been the SD57 busing contractor for the past 15 years.
The Ohio-based company operates a fleet of 50,000 buses all over North America and is now responsible for serving about 3,500 students on 63 operating routes in Prince George, Mackenzie, McBride and Valemount.
Karpenko said he hoped the cancelled Bear Lake and Salmon Valley routes will be resolved by Monday, as First Student is working through its collective agreements to get a driver on those routes.
“I said this a couple of times, we thought it would be resolved and it hasn't so we're in daily communication with First Student to rectify these problems because it is a faraway community by bus service.”
Karpenko noted that the district is also looking at other solutions to get the students to school.
“In the case that this happens again, we've got a backup plan, but one of the problems that we have is that it's a contracted-out service so we don't have our own buses, and we don't have our own staff,” he explained.
“Because it’s contracted out and we're relying heavily on for First Student to support our students in getting them to school.”
When asked for comment on the issue, the company issued a short statement via email.
“We understand the stress that the nationwide school bus driver shortage is putting on parents and students with the changing and cancellation of routes. We are working to identify route efficiencies to pick up as many students as possible and continue actively recruiting, hiring, and training new drivers,” said First Student spokesperson Jay Brock.
Karperno noted there has been some mixed messaging between First Student and SD57, adding the district is trying to correct that information.
“We're making our website the place where parents should look. So, if they get an email and they want to make sure, check our website, that will be the most accurate information that we have. We will do everything in our power to make sure our website is up and First Student is communicating as clearly as possible with parents,” he said.
“We're struggling with this as well. We want to make sure we did everything to have a bus provider that would be able to deliver our students to school so we can teach them.”
Updated route information is available on School District 57’s website.
