Complaints from parents in the area are rolling in regarding frequent school bus route cancellations. The Times has heard from many parents who are pointing out that while it’s understandable for a route to be cancelled once in a while, what has been going on since the start of the school year is far bigger than that, with some families experiencing a half dozen route cancellations per month.
Holly Amber Brown has 4 kids who attend 3 separate schools. Both she and her partner are employed in downtown Ottawa, meaning their commutes are already extremely long. They work different hours to offset the costs of any before and after school care, which means that often only one parent is at home. This puts a heavy burden on that parent’s shoulders when a bus route gets cancelled.
Like many working parents, Holly can’t simply leave work when she wants. She manages a team in the healthcare field and frequently runs training sessions and meetings – things that she can’t just get up and walk away from. The result is that her kids have sometimes had to miss school entirely. Holly points out that since we live in a rural area, the options for being transported to school are limited to the bus or a drive from a parent. When a school bus route is cancelled, there is no regularly scheduled public transportation ready to take kids to school. In fact, many places in the local area don’t even have bike paths or sidewalks for children to use. Holly also urges the consideration of children with disabilities, who may be more affected by the change in routine when their bus route is cancelled.
Holly doesn’t have an easy solution to the problem, but she argues that Student Transportation of Eastern Ontario (STEO), which manages bus transportation in the area, should be more transparent about the problem and the steps they are taking to resolve it. She also suggests that it may be necessary for secondary schools to begin offering before and after school clubs, at least until the busing problem is resolved. One of the times when Holly’s daughter’s bus was cancelled and she couldn’t make it on time, her daughter had to wait in the hall to be picked up.
Many people, including bus drivers, have weighed in on the reason why bus routes are being cancelled so often. The general consensus is that the job’s compensation and benefits are insufficient to attract casual drivers who will drive when other drivers take a day off.
“The bus cancellations are because our regular drivers are sick, and there are no spares to do the runs,” said Francine Allen-Lalonde. “It’s not because we don’t want to work. If more money was granted to the companies and their drivers, then there could be more training which would mean more drivers, more spares and less cancellations.”
School bus drivers typically make around $20-21 per hour, which is far below comparable jobs in the city with much better hours. The starting wage for an OC Transpo driver in Ottawa is over $29 per hour, with significant raises in the first two years. School bus drivers have fewer working hours split into two shifts at off hours of the working day. They also haul the most precious cargo we have – our children. It’s not surprising that with the compensation offered, driver positions aren’t filling.