Thunder Bay parent angered by cuts to school bus service

A Thunder Bay, Ont., parent is speaking out about changes to a Ministry of Education funding formula that will disqualify students such as her daughter from school bus transportation. 

The distance most students must travel to school in order to qualify for busing will double starting Sept. 1, according to a news release issued Friday by Student Transportation Services of Thunder Bay.

"The high school is too close to my residence to qualify her for busing," said Maydena Remenda of her daughter. "So presumably they want her to walk the three kilometres there in the morning and the three kilometres back."

Student Transportation Services lists the new student transportation eligibility distances as follows:

• ·     Junior kindergarten and senior kindergarten: Minimum 800 metres (current 400 metres)
• ·     Grades 1 to 3: Minimum 1.6 kilometres (current 800 metres)
• ·     Grades 4 to 8: Unchanged at 1.6 kilometres
• ·     Grades 9 to 12: Minimum 3.2 kilometres (current 1.6 kilometres)

An estimated 15 per cent of students across school boards in Thunder Bay will be affected by the changes, said Craig Murphy, the consortium manager for the transportation service.  

Remenda's measurements put her house 3.3 kilometres from the school, she said, meaning her daughter should qualify for busing. But the service measures the distance from the furthest point of her property line to the closest point on the school property, she said. 

Remenda called that "silly," saying her child still has to make it into the building.

"It's also crossing the Trans Canada Highway," she said, "which is one of the busiest intersections in the city. And to me, that just feels like it's not safe."

Students just two blocks from Remenda's house will qualify for transportation, so the school bus will still need to visit her neighbourhood, she said.

She questioned why her daughter couldn't simply get on the same bus.

Murphy said the transportation service has heard from frustrated parents, and he understands their concerns.

"The Ministry of Education has deemed that all areas of the province should go via a standard distance policy; certainly that is not the opinion of us in the North," he said. 

"It can be winter here for, you know, up to seven of the 10 months of the school year. The walkability infrastructure isn't quite maybe where it should be for such things as walking to school," he said.

Managers of transportation consortiums, directors of education and school trustees have all been approaching the Ministry since last April to consider giving special consideration to the north, Murphy said. 

"Unfortunately it has not resulted in a change."

The Ministry of Education told Radio-Canada in a statement that the new funding formula "establishes needs-based Common Reference Standards (home-to-school distance criteria) for funding to encourage consistency and improve equitable access to student transportation services across the province."

It also "establishes evidence-based funding benchmarks that reflect the cost of providing services – such as number of routes, time and distance traveled."

Furthermore, the ministry said, the formula reflects the needs of the North by considering factors such as hazardous walking conditions, including areas without sidewalks or controlled crossings, and students with special transportation needs due to medical conditions, wheelchairs or specialized equipment.

A spokesperson for the Minister of Education told Radio-Canada that school boards have the option to offer supplemental bus services by dipping into funding earmarked for local priorities. 

But the superintendent of business for the Lakehead District School Board said in an emailed statement that the money for local priorities is already spoken for.

"Local priorities and supplemental funding received beyond the base student transportation funding is allocated toward additional costs that are incurred by school boards such as special education transportation, increasing fuel costs and driver attraction and retention compensation announced by the Ministry of Education," Kirsti Alaksa said.