‘Ridiculous:’ Halifax students walk to school after bus never shows
Posted Sep 15, 2017 05:00:07 AM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
HALIFAX – Two weeks into school and bussing continues to be an issue for some students in the Halifax Regional School Board with one group of high school students forced to walk Wednesday when a bus simply never showed up.
Haolin Tong is in Grade 12 at Charles P. Allen High School in Bedford and since last Friday, he and others have been late for class every day by at least 15 minutes despite being registered to take a bus with Stock Transportation.
The situation culminated Wednesday when Tong and others waited until almost 10:30 a.m. before he and three other students decided to make the 45-minute walk to school, which included walking through construction on Hammonds Plains Road.
The group of Tong, one grade 11 student and two grade 10 students didn’t arrive until roughly 11:05 a.m., which meant missing their entire first class and nearly half of their second.
Other students that didn’t make the trek, Tong said, didn’t know what to do and just went home.
He did arrive just on time Thursday but with a different driver, route number and so much uncertainty with Wednesday’s bus not coming at all, he said the situation has become incredibly frustrating.
“It’s just ridiculous and I just can’t take this anymore,” he said. “We did nothing wrong, it was not our responsibility, we’ve just followed the bus schedules.”
“It’s frustrating for me because I don’t want to miss class; it’s grade 12, I’m in IB (International Baccalaureate) and my classes are very important to me,” he continued.
“I don’t want to miss a minute of it.”
Tong said numerous attempts to contact Stock have been fruitless, as no one has returned his calls including nearly a dozen Wednesday morning.
“I don’t know what to do. Should we just go home? Are we going to be penalized for it? I just hope I can get an explanation from Stock Transportation or HRSB.”
Assigned to bus that’s never showed
Tong was assigned to bus 162 at the start of the year but he’s yet to ride that bus because it has yet to show up at the corner of Windstone Close and Southgate Drive as indicated by Stock’s schedule.
He has so far taken routes H06, H08 and 157 with new driver’s each time, something he said has caused mass confusion for some students.
Stock Transportation spokesperson Kate Walden said in a statement the company typically has these “traffic issues and delays” arise in the first few weeks of the school year and noted it’s also happening in other areas of the region.
“Stock Transportation and Halifax Regional School Board (HRSB) teams are working closely to make routes as efficient as possible,” the statement said.
HRSB did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Walden said as of Thursday, bus 162 was now assigned to bus H6 and a second bus followed it in case it reached capacity, as overcrowding and simply not being able to get on the bus is something Tong said other students had dealt with too.
Walden encouraged parents and students submit requests and questions to their online portal, which she said are reviewed multiple times per day for quick response.
Tong feels the school itself has done the best it could to communicate with Stock Transportation but hopes the issue can be sorted out soon.
-With files from Katie Hartai
