SRSD plans expanding access to in-town bus rides for fees

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This article was published 13/06/2024 (338 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

All Seine River School Division students who live within 1.6 kilometres of their school could have access to bus rides for a fee next school year.
School board trustees will vote on expanding the $500 per household option to all students at their next meeting June 25 after putting forward a notice of motion at Tuesday night’s meeting.
Priority would still be given to the originally approved kindergarten to Grade 4 students who live 0.8 to 1.6 km away. Next in line would be kindergarten to Grade 4 kids living less than 0.8 km from the school, then Grade 5 and up living 0.8 to 1.6 km away, and finally older kids living closer than 0.8 km away.
If a higher priority child needed the seat on the bus, the lowest priority student based on the first-some-first-served system would be given a week’s notice that they needed to walk or find an alternative ride to school.
The original plan to only provide rides to younger students between 0.8 and 1.6 km was passed in February as the board was looking at cuts to make in its deficit. This new idea was discussed by the board after secretary treasurer Amanda Senkowski told trustees she has been getting a lot of questions from parents trying to plan for the fall.
She gave examples of students who lived close to the school, but whose child care was farther away. Another was one sibling who was young enough to qualify, but who had an older brother or sister who could easily be picked up at the same home. There were also concerns for the youngest kids, some who will still be four years old when school starts, who live closer than 0.8 km.
At Tuesday’s meeting, it was revealed that the school division had already been busing students who did not qualify under its free 0.8 to 1.6-km program this school year. There were 591 kids on the bus living closer than the 1.6-km limit that dictates whether the division gets provincial funding, and almost 300 of them were older than Grade 4 according to Senkowski.
The Province pays $410 per student who lives within the division’s boundaries, beyond 1.6 km from the school, and rides the bus. School of choice students who ride in from beyond the division boundaries are not funded. French Immersion students who come from other divisions that do not offer the program are the responsibility of the division they come from.
“They could choose to bus their students, they could choose to pay the parents, they could choose to reach out to us to transport them – that hasn’t happened,” explained Senkowski.