Pearl Lorentzen
Lakeside Leader
There are three bus drivers being trained to drive in Slave Lake, but the process takes two months. Therefore, parents will continue to have to transport in-town students.
On November 7, High Prairie School Division (HPSD) had to stop bussing 265 students who live in Slave Lake and it’s subdivisions.
At the Nov. 15 HPSD board meeting, the board responded to questions on this issue from the parent council at one of the Slave Lake schools – C.J. Schurter. Trustee Cory Hughes attended the parent council meeting and brought the questions to the board.
The first question was could the MELT (bus driver training) be provided in Slave Lake.
“It’s a really good question,” answered Superintendent Laura Poloz. At the moment, the only location in Slave Lake approved for training drivers is the CJ Schurter parking lot, but this cannot be used during school hours and is full of buses. The High Prairie location works better. Also, HPSD’s senior trainer is on leave. The current trainer has enough hours to become a senior trainer, but cannot become one until June. MELT trainer training includes both a year minimum and a training hour minimum. There’s a senior trainer in High Prairie that can oversee, but HSPD would have to hire someone from outside to supervise training in Slave Lake.
At the moment, three people have applied to drive bus in Slave Lake, Poloz added. All three are being trained. A non-senior trainer is only allowed to train three people at once. This part of the training takes about two weeks. The hours are set up so that the three people from Slave Lake can carpool to High Prairie.
“It’s so restrictive,” says Poloz. “We’re training all the ones that have applied.”
Earlier in the meeting, Poloz also discussed transportation across the school division. High Prairie and Kinuso areas are okay. West of there, bus routes have had to be reconfigured. As already mentioned, Slave Lake had five in-town routes canceled to allow transportation for the out of town students.
“We have been training drivers steady,” says Poloz. However, some drivers have quit after a few days after training to take full-time work driving truck.
“We do it for free,” says Poloz. However, if they needed to hire trainers through the college it would cost $10,000 per person.
One of the challenges is that the short hours. Drivers work around one-and-a-half hours in the morning and the same in the afternoon. Drivers receive a flat rate of $69.35 per route, plus a kilometre rate. The drivers do however get full medical benefits.
“The problem becomes those shorter routes aren’t worth as much,” says Poloz.
Before shutting down the Slave Lake routes, HPSD looked into double routes, she added. However, the drivers would only receive another $3.50 for another half hour to 45 minutes of work, which isn’t fair for the driver. Also, the schools would have to be open longer to supervise the kids, which would be the equivalent of paying another full-time education assistant per day.
The province requires school boards to bus students living 2.4 km, or more, away from the school, but in the past HPSD has also given parents the option of paying for busing if their kids are closer.
Another question was how is the 2.4 km boundary measured.
The answer was that the initial measurement is done based on the driving distance from the school’s property boundary to the child’s home property boundary. This is based on the sides closest to each other. If the distance is close to 2.4 km, walking distance is calculated. This can be shorter because of the trail system.
This year, the school didn’t have to apply for a grant for busing, so used a bit more discretion, said Poloz. So for instance, if a Kindergarten to Grade 3 student was too close to CJ Schurter, but their older sibling was approved for busing to EG Wahlstrom or Roland Michener, they were added. In hindsight, she added, this may not have been the best idea.
The board and administration also stated how much they appreciate HPSD bus drivers. Also, their thanks to the parents, grandparents, and neighbours who have stepped up to get kids to school.
“The vast majority of people were very supportive,” said Poloz.
The next question was how close is Slave Lake to losing busing as a whole.
The summary in the meeting notes says, “This is difficult to answer. We have no control over staff going on medical leaves. Many divisions are in the same situation of not having enough bus drivers and spare drivers.”
Advocacy
In another part of the meeting, the board discussed how best to help parents and parent councils be part of advocating for transportation and mental health.
One of the parent councils had requested form letters.
“Templates are very ineffective,” said Poloz. From an expert on lobbying, she had learned that form letters aren’t read.
“That was a point I was going to bring up,” said HPSD chair Joy McGregor.
Instead, the board suggested a list of key facts and advocacy points. Parents or councils can write their own letter, ideally, starting off with personal stories.
“We’re always looking for the parents’ voice,” said McGregor.
