Education minister to review Stock Transportation bus performance

Nova Scotia's education minister announced Thursday there will be an internal review of the province's school bus system after complaints from parents during the early days of school.

On Wednesday, over 100 children at an elementary school in the Halifax suburb of Bedford were left stranded after their buses didn't arrive.

Dozens of parents of students at Basinview Drive Community School complained on social media about buses that were late, early, or didn't come.

Education Minister Zach Churchill said there is a new online system for registering for bus service, and late registrations played a role in some of the confusion.

However, he said, given what has become annual complaints about service provided by Stock Transportation, his department is reviewing the busing system.

Crystal Truax, the regional manager of Eastern Canada for Stock Transportation, also said the issues at Basinview Drive were due to late registrants and route changes.

"That situation took place due to routing changes. We continue to change routes, based on students being added, based on updated data. And unfortunately that is what caused the confusion," said Truax at a press conference on Thursday.

5-year-old lost for 2 hours

One five-year-old boy was lost for two hours, after he was transferred to the wrong bus.

Ron Heiman, the director of operations services for Halifax Regional Centre for Education said they apologized to the boy's parents.  

"We did manage to locate the student and the bus that that student was on as promptly as possible," said Heiman.

Churchill said there isn't a plan to drop the contract with Stock, but rather to make the existing system work better.