A group of rural parents have some ideas for improving School District 57's busing system while also keeping costs down.
In a report presented to the school board's education services committee earlier this month, members of the Coalition of Rural Educational Sustainability say regular riders should not be charged a fee, but out-of-catchment courtesy riders should pay a nominal fee.
At $4.7 million, student transportation costs the school district roughly $500,000 more than the district receives from the provincial government for the service.
The group also suggests the options of registering for morning- and afternoon-only service instead of just full-time, which they maintain will provide for greater accuracy in the establishment of routes.
A common complaint has been that students are signed up for full-day use but use only the morning or afternoon service.
The service is made available to students who live more than four kilometres from their school by the nearest passable road and with the closure of schools more students qualify for the service, the group asserts, and not just in the rural areas.
The group also called for pre-determined collection points on all routes to reduce the time it takes for drivers to cover their routes. As it stands, the group says bus stops have generally been set at the nearest crossroad which doesn't work as well in densely-populated areas.
"There are stops at consecutive driveways and others where students must congregate at a collection point," the report states. "There are a number of stops on various routes that could be eliminated to streamline delivery of this service."
Parents advisory groups could help determine the safest places for collection points and also implement walking buses to and from collection points.
"Walking buses are a system of creating a chain of pick-up locations for walking students at points along a walking route that would end at the collection point," the report states. "Typically, this also includes a parent volunteer."
Trustee Roxanne Ricard, who chairs the education services committee, declined to comment, saying the report will be considered at the trustees next regular board meeting on June 28.
