Vernon parents push for charter buses during snowy months
Parents say school buses are unfit and unsafe in the snowy mountain passes
A battle over buses is pitting parents against school administrators in Vernon on Wednesday.
Parents of players on the Vernon Secondary School’s football team want to charter a bus to take them over the snowy Coquihalla Highway to the Lower Mainland to play a game in Burnaby.
Sherri Black says the trip is too dangerous for a school bus.
“School buses may be safe in town-long trips. But on the Coquihalla, through the summit—I don’t think the school bus is equipped. Not safe, not safe at all,” says Black.
“It’s our money and we should have a say how we get there.”
Vernon school district superintendent Joe Rogers says the high school must send the team on a regular school bus due to a contract agreement with the drivers’ union, but insists the school buses are safe.
“The school bus is the safest mode of travel—the Transportation Safety Board would tell you it’s the safest mode of travel,” Rogers told CBC News.
Rogers says parents can take their children in their own vehicles.
Sherri Black says that's an option she and other parents are considering, but they will continue to push for the right to pay for a charter bus in the future.
With files from CBC's Brady Strachan