Over 13,000 Anglophone East School District students are bussed to and from class each day.
But the transportation sector is getting stretched to its limit, according to the Director of Finance and Administration.
“We are getting stretched with the tremendous growth that we’ve received, as well as the K to 2 elimination of the early run. That’s impacted loads. We no longer do two loads, because we were able to take the K to 2’s home and then come back and get the rest of the kids, and we don’t do that anymore. So that’s had a significant impact,” Aubrey Kirkpatrick says.
This was due to changes to the school day start and end times, which were made more concurrent.
Anglophone East School District is also experiencing a drastic increase in the number of students it serves. Last week, at the District Education Council meeting, Superintendent Randolph MacLEAN shared with members that enrolled numbers were at 20,300.
Students who live more than 1.8 kilometres away from their boundary educational facility are eligible to take the school bus.
Kirkpatrick adds that their overflow buses are now overflowing, “It’s a challenge, obviously, to find the bussing, but we’ve been training bus drivers. We are always asking for more resources, but we recognize we are one of seven districts, and everybody else is asking, and there’s a finite pot of resources right now.”
He says they have 55 routes in the mornings currently out of 186 that are over 100 per cent allocated.
“We aren’t in a situation where we’ve got six kids to a seat or anything like that. We’re still good within the limits. But some parents, even though they’re eligible for transportation, choose to drive their children to the school,” Kirkpatrick adds.
He says they need to ask for resources, but it’s not like they can just pick up the phone and tell the Department of Transportation to send them six buses.
“It’s not how it works, and it’s a challenge, and other districts are in the same in similar situations,” Kirkpatrick states.
The School District is currently transporting 13,274 students in the morning, and 13,473 in the afternoon.
