Norm Macdonald MLA                                              Columbia River – Revelstoke

MEDIA RELEASE

For immediate release

October 15, 2009

School children have no way home;

school district blames lack of government funding

Parents of young children attending Edgewater Elementary are fed up with a school transportation system that provides a bus to school in the morning, but won’t bring them home again, says Columbia River – Revelstoke MLA Norm Macdonald.

Pleas to the school board to reinstate the bus to bring the children home have resulted in the admission by the Rocky Mountain school district that the transportation budget that is provided to school districts by the provincial government is simply inadequate.

“The transportation budget for school districts has remained the same for seven years,” declared Macdonald.  “The underfunding is forcing school districts to cancel bus routes.”

In an interview with CBC Radio this morning, Rocky Mountain School District Superintendent Bendina Miller spoke of having to address the financial realities of limited funding.

Earlier this week, the school district’s Board of Education passed a motion requesting that its provincial organization, the BC School Trustees Association, address the lack of transportation funding with the Minister of Education.

“We have placed school districts in an untenable position.  We have forced them to cancel bus routes because the money to fund those busses is being withheld by the provincial government.

“Rural parents depend on bussing to get their children to and from school.  I have spoken with a parent who is required to drive 60 kms every day to pick up her son from school.  Every day she has to pack up her pre-school child and make the journey into Edgewater to pick up her 6 year old son.  She’s expecting another child, and the stress of the constant travel is just getting to be too much.”

Throughout the district, rural parents are expressing concerns that their bus route might be next as rising transportation costs are making it more difficult to continue existing routes.

“It just can’t be acceptable to force parents to transport their children to school over vast distances.  Why should parents who live in rural areas have to give up hours of every day, disrupting the schedules of other children in the family, because the government won’t properly fund school districts?”

Macdonald is calling on the Minister of Education to increase transportation funding so that school districts can fulfill their responsibility to get children safely to school and back.