As children return to school this week parental concerns about changes made to busing routes in the South Cariboo remain.
Near the end of the last school year, School District 27 announced several changes to their transportation system. This included eliminating several bus stops, enforcing a longstanding policy requiring children living within three kilometres of their school to walk to school and limiting school-of-choice riders. Brenda Hooker, SD27's secretary-treasurer, said they reinstated a few stops after receiving feedback from several families about the changes.
"We're looking at how best to optimize our resources. It's been an ongoing process over the summer and we're just in the process now of getting the operation ready for Wednesday, Sept. 4 which is the first day children are back in classes," Hooker remarked last week. "We're providing information about the finalized routes on our website. The link on our website is called 'bus information' and they can find information regarding the stops and their school catchment area."
However, some parents like Danielle Colbourne hope SD27 will reverse course on the grounds of safety. Colbourne and her family moved to the 108 Mile Ranch from Lac La Hache last year so her children could attend 108 Mile Elementary and she is concerned her six-year-old son Miles, who is going into Grade One at Mile 108 Elementary, is now required to walk to school rather than ride the bus. Over the summer she said she and her son tested out the walk from their home to the school and clocked a time of 30 minutes.
"It took us half an hour to get there and we were met with a lot of traffic and it was not done during a busy time of day, it was done around 11 a.m.," Colbourne said. "We had traffic stop for us because everyone would go across the centre line to go around us safely."
She noted this walk was long in the summer and during the winter it would be dark and slippery which she feels would be dangerous for students. Colbourne said the lack of sidewalks throughout the 108 and other semi-rural or rural areas poses a potential danger for children.
Following feedback from parents, politicians and local law enforcement Hooker said SD27 conducted several on-the-ground reviews of the bus routes and routes children will be walking to school, including one in the 108 Mile Ranch on July 26. This led to them retaining a few more bus stops in the 108 Mile Ranch and redirecting one route off Highway 97 and down Telqua Drive instead.
However, Hooker said they are still mandating that students who live within three kilometres of their school must either walk to school or find their own transportation rather than take the bus. Hooker reiterated the three-kilometre radius for transportation has always been their walk limit and is a provincial standard.
"The 108 area is heavily populated and there are still safe mechanisms for kids to get to school and it is a collective responsibility for kids to get to their bus stop or school," Hooker said. "In the south end of the district we still have seven busses that service the area, we still have 165 bus stops and we're accommodating 371 registered students. It's a robust service we're providing within our policy and our mandate."
When asked about Colbourne's safety concerns, Hooker said that it's not SD27's fault the area was developed without sidewalks and it's not their mandate to provide them. She stressed SD27's mandate is providing K-12 education and they have a responsibility to all 5,000 of their students, not just the 120 students who live in the 108 Mile Ranch.
"It's a balance between making sure routes are efficient and we're not triggering other safety concerns and balancing our limited resources," Hooker explained. "We're actively trying to create some after-school care spaces for families [be]cause that's a concern that has also been brought up."
Hooker said SD27's focus should be on educating the students and ensuring as much of their public funding as possible is going towards the classrooms. She further noted SD27's current transportation system is free for parents to use and does not ask for an extra fee, like some school districts.
"Every dollar we spend outside the classroom is a dollar we could spend inside the classroom. Every dollar we spend on transportation is a dollar less we can spend on instruction."
Colbourne questions how much money eliminating bus stops within three kilometres of the school will actually save SD27. She pointed out the buses would still end up driving by these former stops anyway on the way to school and wondered why children couldn't still be picked up at them.
Hooker noted she doesn't think you could find another school district in B.C. offering the same level of transportation services as SD27, even after these recent changes. She added SD27 analyzes their bus routes on an ongoing basis and will also eliminate stops based on changing population dynamics.
"We do that by electronic means but also by on-the-ground research. We're still providing a very robust service," Hooker said. "I know from being a parent myself that safety is always a concern for your children and we recognize that. We also recognize we cannot necessarily solve that and we can't provide door-to-door service. It's a balance of managing our staff safety and the safety of the other students on the bus, as well as individual student concerns."
While Colbourne's job at Cariboo-Chilcotin Funeral Service gives her the flexibility to drive her son to school, she said not all parents are so fortunate. She's in contact with several 108 Mile Ranch moms who plan to organize so their children can walk to school in large groups to increase visibility.
Ultimately Colbourne said she wants more transparency from SD27 about why the changes were made. She noted that on their website SD27 refers to an external report which she hasn't been able to find and wonders which school districts SD27 is being compared to. Colbourne said she doesn't believe they are communities like the 108 Mile Ranch, Horse Lake or Forest Grove with no streetlights, stoplights or sidewalks.
Colbourne also criticized the school district's engagement to date with parents, noting only a single town hall meeting was held about these changes which she said many parents were unable to attend. She said she has also yet to receive a letter explaining these changes which SD27 had said they would be sending out.
In addition to parental opposition, Colbourne noted that 100 Mile House RCMP, Cariboo-Chilcotin MLA Lorne Doerkson, District of 100 Mile House Mayor Maureen Pinkney and Ministry of Transportation members have also voiced concerns or opposition to these changes. A petition started online protesting the move has grown to 1,000 signatures as of the publication of this article.
"Had they actually walked these routes with their own feet they would not be able to deem it safe," Colbourne asserted. "We in the community know that it's not safe for our kids to be walking on these streets with no shoulders, no streetlights and narrowed roads in the winter. My main concern is there wasn't as much forethought as they say there was."
Hooker encourages anyone with questions or concerns about the transportation changes to check out the district's FAQ or reach out to them at transportation.info@sd27.bc.ca. She noted that after the first few weeks of the school year, they will begin accepting new courtesy riders for students heading to their school of choice.
"We're trying to see if and where we can accommodate those requests and how we can do that without impacting our fiduciary responsibility to the public funding we get," Hooker remarked. "When parents register for a school of choice they're clearly informed transportation services are not provided, but we're going to try if we can."
