Changes to 1.6-km school bus policy priced, but decision still down the road

The parent's email carried a blunt message to school board administrators and politicians: their school bus stop had to be reinstated.

"Abolish the 1.6 km rule because it's ridiculous," the parent wrote.

"This isn't 1960. The amount of vehicles on the road has probably tripled since then. We don't have sidewalks. In most households, either both parents work or one parent is out of province working to keep a roof over our heads, so we depend on the school bus to get our kids to and from school safely."

The message from the parent whose name was redacted in documents provided to CBC News, for privacy reasons ends: "I expect a reply in the coming days," and provides a phone number "if you'd rather give me excuses over the phone than by email."

Every school day morning, tens of thousands of children in the province board a bus to begin their day.

Others don't qualify, because they live too close to school within 1.6 kilometres, under the current rule, which has been in place since the 1970s.

While the Department of Education has made a policy change to allow one courtesy stop inside that so-called "parental responsibility" zone on a case-by-case basis, the busing issue has been a simmering concern in many areas across the island.

The demands and requests from parents can be significant everything from ensuring safety, to calls for what is essentially door-to-door service for their children.

Meanwhile, officials in the education system are trying to be fiscally responsible, while ensuring the system is fair and safe for everyone.

It's not an easy task.

CBC News has obtained hundreds of pages of internal government documents through access to information that shed light on challenges in the system.

Transporting students costs taxpayers nearly $59 million a year and that figure could go higher, depending on what the government decides to do in the future.

Changing bus criteria would come with a cost

The province has priced various options that would allow more students to qualify for busing.

But no decisions have been made on any future changes.

According to briefing notes prepared for the premier by the Department of Education in late November, here's how some options would break down:

• Busing all students from kindergarten to Grade 3 would cost an additional $4.8 million per year.
  
• Busing all students from kindergarten to Grade 6 would bump that additional cost up to $7.9 million per year.

The department also asked for a cost estimate of changing the 1.6-kilometre zone to one kilometre instead.

That would mean an additional $3.1 million for students from kindergarten to Grade 6, and $3.5 million for all students up to Grade 12.

Education Minister Al Hawkins acknowledges those numbers present a dilemma, in a system that is not blessed with unlimited dollars.

"These extra costs obviously would have come from somewhere. And so what exactly would you have to cut? Does that mean less teachers in schools? Does it mean less programs in schools?" Hawkins asked.

"Somewhere along the line, you've got to make those adjustments. And so that's part of the entire study that we're looking at."

According to Hawkins, 14 years ago, it cost $34 million to transport 52,000 students.

This year, there are fewer students riding the bus, but the bill is much higher $58.6 million for 42,000 schoolchildren.

The 1.6-kilometre limit here compares favourably to other provinces.

Any potential changes to the 1.6-kilometre limit for all students likely won't happen until much further down the road.

Right now, Hawkins says, education officials are focused on a case-by-case review.

Hawkins says officials have looked at 166 routes to date, covering 47 schools. Courtesy stops inside the zone were added to 72 of the routes reviewed nearly half.

But that review process could take a while to complete, since there are about 1,100 school bus routes in the province.

Hawkins says the work has been prioritized to address "pressure points" in the system.

"One of the things that I wanted to really look at is in areas where buses were passing by students within the 1.6 with empty seats. That's not necessary."

And as for that broader review of the 1.6-kilometre rule, Hawkins says there are still unanswered questions that the province is grappling with.

"Does that mean that a child now that's living, I don't know, 100 metres from school is going to have to be picked up? There's going to be extra buses put in place? So I'm not sure we fully understand the magnitude of what removing 1.6 kilometres really means."

And he notes that there is a parental responsibility as well.

"Unless you had a bus system which I don't know exists anywhere, where you'd have a door-to-door pickup of all students, somewhere along the line parents have to take their children to a bus stop," Hawkins said.

'Please reconsider this decision'

Discontent over school bus zoning has been an evergreen issue.

• Student forced to walk 'really dangerous' road to school, mom demands new bus policy
• Busing hot issue as new school year settles in

But a decision last May sparked it to flare up and smoulder in more places than before.

The Newfoundland and Labrador English School District told parents it would be strictly enforcing the government's policy prohibiting bus stops within 1.6 kilometres of schools on the island.

• School board cracking down on distance rule for busing
• Busing policy puts children at risk, parents claim

The move was not popular with some parents, especially at schools in central and western Newfoundland where the practice had been previously permitted.

And the emailsand messages started coming in.

A sample, from Norris Arm:"Please reconsider this decision, and realize that in most rural towns, this cannot possibly be worth what it could cost us."

By early June, the communications branch of the executive council the top level of the civil service responsible for the overall operations of the government had taken an interest, asking how many courtesy school bus seats are available and how many children were approved.

Officials there were advised those numbers are in constant flux, and are managed at the school level.

As all this was going on, internal NLESD emails flagged the consequences of allowing extra stops to be added inside the 1.6-kilometre zone.

In a June 15 email,Ian Sinclair, thedirector of student transportation, outlined some of those "challenges":

• "Adding stop(s) would negatively impact (longer ride) students who are eligible for the benefit of students who are not eligible."
  
• "In many cases there would be more than 10 students availing of such a stop inside the 1.6 km zone; this alone poses a safety hazard."
  
• "Run the risk of treating courtesy riders even better (i.e. closer stops) than eligible riders which would potentially increase parental complaints."
  
• "Public/political pressure to move/change the single stop location would always be present gets complicated and increase work duties."

There was other correspondence during the summer, and meetings in late August.

Finally, in September, the department reversed course, changing the guideline that prohibited student pickups inside 1.6 kilometres and clearing the way for one courtesy stop inside the zone.

"The initial response that we're getting from that, is that it is working," Hawkins said.

'We try to be consistent'

That was a policy decision of the government. But it's up to the English School District to implement it.

School district officials are continuing to review requests to add extra bus stops inside the so-called parental responsibility zone.

"With busing,safety is our utmost concern," said Terry Hall, NLESD assistant director in charge of student transportation.

"So we look at all of these potential impacts with respect to putting a stop in and basically treat them one by one."

He says officials have prioritized which routes get assessed first, and acknowledges there are a number of demands for service on the system.

"I'm not sure you'll ever make everybody happy, because the yardstick will move something will come up and the yardstick will move," Hall said.

"But you know, we just try to be fair. We try to be consistent, and you know we try and accommodate consistent things across the board where we can and when we find something out, if it seems unfair, we deal with it."

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