How officials tried to contain fallout after a Halifax school bus went missing for 4½ hours
Emails show French school board member warned bus service was already a problem and 'was going to get worse'
As the French school board grappled with how to reassure angry parents after a Halifax school bus dropped their children off more than 4½ hours late one day without explanation, the board's executive director discussed holding a meet-and-greet where affected students would be given a treat bag from the bus company, while parents could voice their concerns.
"We obviously don't want it to turn into a rant for the angry parents, but hopefully it would be seen as a positive gesture," wrote Michel Collette in an email to other officials from Conseil scolaire acadien provincial and Transco, the bus company.
"Alternatively, we let the incident fade, and we just try to surpass parents' expectations."
No meeting was ever held, despite calls from at least two school board members to hold one.
One of those members, Marc Pinet, suggested holding meetings at "almost all [French-language] schools. There are [busing] problems everywhere."
The email, written a week after the Sept. 9, 2024, incident, is contained in a 261-page access-to-information package obtained by CBC News.
The documents reveal the anger and worry felt by parents as they recounted the horror of not knowing where their children were for several hours, how officials responded to the situation that had garnered national media attention, as well as a reminder from a school board member who had warned the bus service was "already a big problem, that it wasn't going to improve, and in fact, it was going to get worse."
CSAP spokesperson Stéphanie Comeau told CBC that while Transco initially suggested a public meeting, the company chose not to go ahead with the offer. She said the board met individually with all families who requested to do so.
It remains unclear where the bus travelled to, but a timeline provided by Transco on Sept. 12 to the board provides some insight on how the incident unfolded.
The company said the regular bus driver for route C107 was unavailable, so a replacement had to be brought in. It's unclear why the driver was unavailable.
While Transco communicated initial delays through a web portal called BusPlanner, efforts to also phone parents were hampered because "unfortunately many phone numbers were found to be incorrect or not in service."
One parent, whose children usually arrive home each day around 3:05 p.m. AT, was initially told the bus would be 25 minutes late, and then over an hour late.
WATCH | Halifax mother demands answers after school bus drops off young kids 4½ hours late:
More delays occurred because of the second driver's lack of familiarity with the route and because of traffic. Another driver was brought in to get the students home. The timeline said all students were home by 7:44 p.m.
At the time of the incident, a system that would allow parents to track bus location in real time was not in place, unlike buses that fell under the Halifax Regional Centre for Education umbrella. Transco is one of HRCE's three operators.
A recent email from Collette said it's expected the system will be up and running in February 2025.
School board not releasing map that shows route travelled
The documents show that Transco provided CSAP with a map of the route travelled, but the information is redacted on the grounds that disclosing it "would be an unreasonable invasion of a third party's personal privacy."
CBC is appealing this.
The documentation shows the first email a CSAP official sent regarding the missing bus on the day of the incident was at 7:38 p.m., only six minutes before all students had arrived home.
'A worrying situation'
In the email, Collette notified some school board members about a "worrying situation" involving busing for students from École Mer et Monde in south-end Halifax. Collette said some students hadn't yet arrived home and the police were involved.
The following day — before CSAP and Transco issued apologies to parents — one parent sent an email to school board officials calling it "appalling and unacceptable" that both parties had not sent anything out.
"I don't understand why you would choose to continue with this service or how you can expect us to trust CSAP," the parent wrote.
The names of parents and their email addresses are redacted.
Letters of apology
The letter sent out on Sept. 10 by CSAP to parents of all students at the school apologized for the bus company's lack of communication. The board said it would work with Transco to review emergency communication protocol, inform all CSAP families of this protocol, and also ask Transco to directly contact the families of students that were on the bus to provide feedback on the incident.
The board also sent out a letter on behalf of Transco, which apologized for the delay, attributing it to "multiple unforeseen events." It said it was taking steps to ensure something like this did not happen again, such as hiring additional drivers who can respond to delays more rapidly and hiring more administrative staff to provide better communication with parents.
Neither letter explained why the incident happened.
School board member Kathleen Howlett was critical of Transco's letter.
"The description of the incident is not detailed and the corrective actions are things that should already be in place," she wrote in French in an email to Collette and another person.
Incident generated national media attention
Pinet was also unhappy.
"The situation is attracting national media attention," he wrote in French in an email to Collette and some other board members. "We need to speak up about this."
The letters emailed to parents prompted many replies. Some parents said they were pulling their kids from buses and were arranging carpool options. One parent said because they were now driving their kid to school, they were 45 to 60 minutes late to work each day.
One parent said their kids were "hungry, thirsty and traumatized" on the bus and peed themselves. The parent said their kids were afraid to take the bus and needed counselling. They asked for taxi chits, a request that was turned down by Collette.
"At this time we are unfortunately unable to provide the courtesy (taxi) transportation option as we are currently offering transportation via a school bus," Collette wrote in a Sept. 16 email.
'Are you going to lose my kids again?' parent asks in email
One parent took their concerns to the education minister, asking Becky Druhan to take action.
"Is the bus my kids take safe?" the parent wrote in French. "Are you going to lose my kids again?"
In an email sent on the evening of the incident, one parent described what it was like calling police to report that their children were missing.
"I cried when I reported what clothes they were wearing … what colour is their hair," said the email.
The parent said they cried as they drove around looking for the bus.
"I pray [to] God that this will not happen again," the parent wrote. "Please help all parents who went to hell to find their children today."
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