6-year-old with diabetes denied school bus accommodation in Woodstock

Taking the yellow school bus is a ritual for most kids growing up.

But for a Woodstock family, a school district's refusal to bend school bus regulations is leaving a child with a medical condition without a ride.

Jennie Groff's son, Sawyer, is six years old and will be going into Grade 1 this fall. He has been diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes since he was two.

Groff doesn't have a vehicle and discovered last school year that the 1.7-kilometre walk to Townsview School in downtown Woodstock would bring down Sawyer's blood sugar levels and leave him exhausted when he arrived.

The challenge came "once the school year started, realizing, this isn't going to work," Groff said.

Type 1 diabetes often develops in childhood and one of the symptoms is extreme fatigue or a lack of energy, according to the Diabetes Canada website. 

So last fall, Groff called the school district to ask if Sawyer could take the bus.

"They told me it didn't matter if there was a doctor's letter, pretty much the only way that they would do busing within our area is if he was physically not able to walk and was in a wheelchair," she said.

That's because New Brunswick has a policy that students have to live over 2.4 kilometres away from school to qualify for a bus.  

Paul MacIntosh, a spokesperson for Anglophone School District West, which includes Woodstock, said in an email statement that the superintendent can provide school bus accommodations to the 2.4-kilometre rule only if a student has a physical or mental disability.

CBC News requested comment from the provincial Education Department and is awaiting a response. 

Groff said she got a letter from Sawyer's pediatrician to give to the school district last November. It said that walking to school was detrimental to not only his medical condition but also his learning.

Despite the letter, Groff was still declined bus accommodations for Sawyer.

In an email shared with CBC News, Woodstock Education Centre transportation clerk Beverly Culberson reiterated that there would be no busing available for Sawyer.

"Sorry if that is inconvenient, but busing is not provided within walk zone except in rare cases of a student having documented special needs," Culberson said.

New Brunswick's bus policy goes beyond what nearby provinces require for elementary school kids. Nova Scotia's policy is that students must live 1.7 kilometres away before busing is allowed. Newfoundland and Labrador is phasing in a move away from requiring a distance of at least 1.6-kilometres from school to no minimum distance. In Prince Edward Island, the minimum distance for eligibility is one kilometre.

Dependent on taxis

After being denied last fall, Groff ended up buying Sawyer taxi rides to and from school each day as the weather got colder. At $8 each way, the costs added up, with Groff estimating she spent over $300 a month on Sawyer's rides to school.

"It got crazy expensive last year with the taxis and there were some days where school was open, but he couldn't go because of either not being able to get a ride for him or there was snow where the taxis were saying 'no we're not driving in this,'" Groff said.

Aside from the taxis not always being reliable, the financial burden added up too. 

"Everything that has gone up, with groceries and all that, just makes it 10 times harder to make sure there's money set aside, at least $300 a month, to be able to send [Sawyer]  to school," she said.

Some weeks the family wouldn't have the budget for taxis, so they would walk, leaving Sawyer too exhausted by the time he arrived at school to learn at all for the first few classes. He would then take a two-hour nap after walking home, she added.

She has an appointment with Sawyer's pediatrician again next week to get another letter as the school year approaches.

Groff said she just wishes that something more could be done to accommodate Sawyer and other kids in similar experiences. 

"It's going to drain the kids, which in turn drains the parents," she said. "The kids deserve better."