School district says it's made improvements to bus safety, but nutrition still a challenge

An auditor general report released Thursday that pointed to a lack of healthy lunches and oversight in school bus safetyhas helped improve policies in those areas, according to the province's largest school board.

But the board's CEO saiddespite ramping up training for bus drivers since the 2016-17 audit,challenges in enforcing nutrition guidelines remain.

Thursday's report looked at two distinct areas of the Newfoundland and Labrador English School District: how the district was managing healthy eating among students, and whether children were safe on school buses.

It found that schools weren't meeting required nutritional guidelines set out by the province discovering chip-stacked, candy-loaded vending machinesand principals who weren't aware that a registered nutritionist had to approve lunch menus.

The report also noted both vehicle inspections and bus driver assessments needed an overhaul: many safety inspection slips were missing, andnearly half of surveyed drivers had a driving infraction, with almost onefifth holding a criminal record.

Driver assessment improved

Those findings, said NLESD CEO Tony Stack, have prompted the district to enforce better vetting of its bus drivers.

"There's over 1,400 drivers, and that's a lot of processing that has to occur," Stack said.

The district "recently developed formal driver standards," as per the auditor general's recommendations, to ensure an applicant's driving and criminal history meets requirements.

"Tracking down all of the various ... police checks is an onerous operation," he said.

But tweaks to "contract language" and a stern message to applicants to submit documents on time, Stack added, havedramatically improved areas of concernsince the audit period.

At the time of the audit, there was no formal assessment process for hiringdrivers.

Stack also said he's confident that all vehicles would have an up-to-date and properly filed safety inspection another issue identified in the report.

Healthy options difficult

Stacksaid the district was aware of the province's school food guide in 2009, but said the challenge lies in "compliance and enforcement"ensuring that each individual school and its food providers are following government rules.

The province's school nutrition guide, created in 2009, requires schools to offer a majority of foods that fall into a "serve most" category, which is low in sodium and added fat and high in vitamins.

We don't have a'nutrition police'- CEO Tony Stack

Foods such as chocolate bars and soda, with no nutritional value, aren't permitted to be sold at all, but the report found that's the bulk of what was on offer in vending machines, making up two-thirds of snack food options available to students.

The report said reducing those options would help reduce childhood obesity. Newfoundland and Labrador currently has the highest rate of the chronic disease in the country.

On Thursday Education Minister Brian Warr said his department is updating nutrition guidelines, whichwill launch as a pilot program in September.

"Nobody consciously decided not to follow it," Stack said, referring to the 10-year-oldguidelines.

"Admittedly, compliance has been a challenge, as has our ability to support, monitor and enforce guidelines," he said. "We don't have a'nutrition police,' per se."

Stack pointed to a lack of resources and clarity within the guidelines as reasons schools found it difficult to control what food was offered by the providers the board hires.

"Really, we need [them] to be adhering to what those guidelines are saying. And they're provided with those guidelines," he said.

"If it continues to be an issue, we'll have no choice but to remove said vending machines from schools ... this is important work."

Read more from CBC Newfoundland and Labrador