Angry parents fight for school bus

By Cayla Gabruck

Pioneer Staff

September 18, 2009

Several parents living north of Edgewater are outraged at the lack of return school bus service for their six young children.

Stacy Schan of Spur Valley said that if his child continues to be neglected by the school district, he will pick up his family of four and move.

“I just wonder why my child isn’t taken care of by the district as others are, and for me, that’s the sticking point,” he said.

“Who says our kids aren’t as important as others because of where they live?  But the school board has made that decision, and made it clear.”

Stacy and his wife Katherine have two children: Lukas, 6, and Nathan, 2.  Every day the school bus picks up Lukas and takes him to Edgewater Elementary School.

However, at the end of the day, his mother has to fetch him from school because there is no return bus.

“The school district’s priorities need to be re-evaluated,” Mr. Schan said.

“Getting the children to school and educating them should be their number one goal – anything other than that should be secondary.”

But Mr. Schan isn’t the only parent up-in-arms about the bus route.

Every afternoon expectant mother Luraina Oddy, who lives east of Brisco, has to pack up her two young children, Nevaeh, 3, and Seqhira, 23 months, and drive a 70-kilometre round trip to pick up her daughter Bellavee, who is attending Grade 1 at Edgewater Elementary.

Mrs. Oddy said she is seriously considering homeschooling her children.

“I feel totally abandoned by the school district,” Mrs. Oddy said.

“I don’t feel the Radium kids should be provided with transportation, and the Brisco kids should be left in the dark because we have a few less numbers.”

According to Bendina Miller, Superintendent for Rocky Mountain School District #6, legislation requires the school district to support children who live outside the walking distance.

The walking distance is defined as four kilometers from the nearest bust stop for children in kindergarten to Grade 3, and 4.8 kilometres for children in Grades 4 to 12.

The district provides either a school bus or financial assistance: a subsidy of 20 cents per kilometer up to $10 per day, plus 30 cents per child.

Another parent, Vicki Roberts of Spillimacheen, said providing transportation assistance helps, but that’s not good enough.

“It’s very frustrating,” she said.  “Every day at 2:30 PM, you have to be at the school and drive your children home.  Yes, they subsidize us, but what they subsidize doesn’t cover gas, time, and wear and tear on our vehicles.”

Two other families – the Nydrens of Spillimacheen with one school-aged child, and Brooke Tegart of Brisco with one school-aged child – are also affected.

The return bus route north of Edgewater was dropped in 2002 due to the shortage of riders.

A bus runs from David Thompson Secondary School to Spillimacheen both morning and afternoon, but doesn’t reach Edgewater until long after the elementary school has been dismissed.

Currently six children from north of Edgewater ride the bus to school in the morning.

According to Ms. Miller, this is too few children to warrant a return trip.

However, she admits that board policy does not specify a minimum number of riders to require a school bus.

“I’m sorry they feel they’ve been abandoned.  I’ve met with the parents, our operations manager Norm Julien has also been in communications with the families, and so has the principal of the school, and we have not been able to give them the answer they are hoping for,” Ms. Miller said.

She said that the route will come up for review by the end of the month, but until then, the district’s hands are tied.

“The bus routes are reconsidered every year but the reality is that five or six students may not be an adequate number for a bus,” she said.

Ms. Miller admits there is a bus that transports four students from Columere Park to school in Canal Flats, and home again.

She said the number of students riding that bus has declined since the route was first developed.  It has been running with four riders since last year.

“I can promise you that all bus routes will be reviewed at the end of the month and that route is part of the review,” Ms. Miller said.

Currently, Mrs. Oddy and Mrs. Roberts have collected more than 90 signatures in support of a two-way bus service to communities north of Edgewater.

“I will fight it until the end.  I’m a competitive person, and I don’t give up – I will take it to Gordon Campbell if I have to,” Mrs. Oddy said.

“We’re not the only community struggling with this problem.”

Columbia River – Revelstoke MLA Norm Macdonald, who met with the two women last week, agrees.

“I think these are two examples of rural parents struggling with what is a consistent lack of funding from the BC Liberals,” he said.

“We have really had no increase in the transportation budget and we are now seeing shortcomings not only with transportation, but across the district in a lot of ways, and that’s been a long-term trend.”

Mr. Macdonald has lent his full support to Mrs. Oddy and Mrs. Roberts.

“To me it’s completely wrong,” he said.

“The first priority we should have is our children’s education – it doesn’t make sense.”

Mr. Macdonald said he will bring the issue before the Minister of Education in the coming week.