Skip to content

Few drivers make for long rides on rural Burns Lake route

Grassy Plains School needs a at least one bus driver
31896169_web1_230222-LDN-Southside-school-bus-reality-busD_1

Southside parents are driving for answers about school buses.

With some kids riding the school bus for up to two hours each way, and other logistical challenges, there is concern that not enough is being done to recruit a full-time driver and ideally a couple of backup drivers as well.

Since the retirement of one driver this school year, Grassy Plains School has had the remaining buses have to re-jig the routing, and pressure on parents to get their children to school some other way. Even the entire school’s schedule has been adjusted to accommodate the timing of it all.

“It has been a little hectic. There are really early mornings for some kids. There are a couple of kids who live about 15 minutes from the school (under normal driving conditions) and they are on the bus for and hour and a half, two hours. That kind of thing,” said Jen Gruen, the chair of Grassy Plains School’s Parent Advisory Council. She also has two bus kids and younger one at home. It’s a situation many families find themselves in, having to juggle a range of children, plus work, plus the distances of rural life.

Grassy Plains School is serviced by three buses, officially called 600, 601 and 602. All three have a different network of rural roads to drive each morning and each afternoon. If one of those drivers is unable to operate, there is usually no backup so that morning or afternoon session - or both - cannot be serviced.

“Some mornings there were one or two routes that had to be cancelled because there was no one to replace them,” Gruen said. “There have been about 27 cancellations between September and January. So there has been some frustration in the community, especially for families that don’t have access to a vehicle to drive them to school. Not everybody has a vehicle.”

What the parents are not doing is blaming School District 91. They certainly want to see action, and every effort put into their situation, but there is understanding that all professions are suffering from a labour pool shortage. What they do hope for is some innovation and perhaps even some extra investment on the part of the school district.

Currently the offer on the table for a new bus driver is about $28/per hour for six hours per day, but a split shift, for five days a week, minus statutory holidays and long vacation periods.

For some, that is a very advantageous situation, but so far, no such person has emerged. It’s a hard time for finding professional drivers, due to all the high-paying jobs across the north, in a variety of settings like highway hauling, industrial sites, and more.

“There are people waitressing who are making better money than that, and when you subtract all the deductions, and all the costs that have gone up, it’s hard to live on that,” Gruen said.

Offering more cash per hour has implications across the whole corp of bus drivers, but when you’re competing with major industry, that’s a reality to be faced, according to the parents.

Also, how about paying drivers for those stat holidays and snow days? How about paying the course expenses for anyone who might want to take on the job but isn’t licensed?

Under the current short-staffed system, Gruen’s kids get on the bus at 7:50 a.m. and arrive at the school at 8:40 a.m. They are not the first one the bus in the morning, nor are they the last ones off in the afternoon. They leave on the afternoon bus at 2:55 p.m. and arrive at home at 4:06 p.m.

“There are some kids on their bus for two hours each way. There are some families that have to drive for 15 minutes to meet the bus because the bus no longer goes all the way to their house,” she said, recounting stories of kids who fall asleep on the bus and even fall asleep on the playground. “It just feels like slowly we are losing some of our resources. In 2018 they decided they would stop allowing children courtesy rides.” Those were stops that were not the usual pickup / dropoff spot, but an alternate site where a grandparent or other caregiver would be, on days the usual home was not the best option.

Currently, a volunteer is at the school at 7:30 a.m. just so there is a responsible adult there when the first children start arriving.

“No matter where we live, I believe our children are entitled to a ride to school,” she said, repudiating the position taken by school districts across the province. “They have made it clear they do not consider busses an essential service, but in my opinion, every child in Canada has the right to go to school, and that includes the responsibility to get them there.”



Frank Peebles

About the Author: Frank Peebles

I started my career with Black Press Media fresh out of BCIT in 1994, as part of the startup of the Prince George Free Press, then editor of the Lakes District News.
Read more