‘Things are getting better’: HRCE on school bus issues
Posted Sep 18, 2020 06:25:02 PM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Some parents are still frustrated with late school buses but the Halifax Regional Centre of Education is assuring them things are getting better.
Spokesperson Doug Hadley says things are improving everyday despite some buses continuing to arrive late.
He tells NEWS 95.7's The Rick Howe Show the three companies who operate buses for HRCE continue to hire new drivers to get to the staffing levels they need.
“There is one company in particular that does seem to have a little more of a shortage than others but I believe they have something like 30 to 40 applicants in the pipeline,” he said. “This week in particular, there were 10 new drivers on the road which is why we're seeing that improvement.”
Hadley says they've also made some adjustments.
“The other thing we did last weekend is we rejigged some routes so that, in this moment while we're still short, we would have buses that might be a few minutes late rather than a half hour late,” said Hadley.
HRCE says 30,000 students are bused around the region every day.
Education Minister Zach Churchill says the introduction of full pre-primary has resulted in an additional 2,000 children this year.
Churchill says some issues were caused by a rash of early retirements of bus drivers early in the year, but overall he believes things are going well.
“We've had a very smooth start to school by a number of metrics, including busing,” he says. “I've been minister for three years now and this has been the smoothest start to busing in Halifax and the HRM.”
