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Student transportation fees becoming more common in the Lakeland

School Divisions across the Lakeland continue to face a student transportation crisis. Conseil Scolaire Centre-Est, Lakeland Catholic School Division, Northern Lights Public Schools and St. Paul Education all face unique challenges, and each are trying to find the right solution to get kids to class.
MVT CESD school bus
File photo/ Mountain View Today

LAKELAND – While fuel costs have generally leveled off in recent weeks, the cost of gasoline and diesel remain significantly higher than just one year ago. 

In the face of mounting pressures from bus driver shortages, insurance hikes and significant increases in fuel costs, school divisions in the Lakeland are finding different approaches to cope with a student transportation crisis. 

Prior to classes beginning for the 2022-23 school year, school board trustees across the province and region had to decide how they would respond to the continued increased costs related to student transportation services. 

For some divisions, it meant implementing new busing fees for students, for other divisions it meant consolidating routes while dissolving other routes entirely.  

Each of the four school divisions operating in the Lakeland, Conseil Scolaire Centre-Est, Lakeland Catholic School Division (LCSD), Northern Lights Public Schools (NLPS) and St. Paul Education, face unique challenges and each are trying to find the right solution to get kids to class. 

Lakeland Catholic School Division 

“Transportation has posed its challenges in the last two years,” Tessa Hetu, the secretary treasurer for LCSD, told Lakeland This Week

“We have and continue to review our routes to try to find as many efficiencies as possible to ensure students are getting to school.” 

Lakeland Catholic uses an entirely contracted fleet of bus operators to get its students to and from school, but staffing all routes remains a challenge.  

Heading into the start of the year, the division had two routes that were unfilled. One of those routes operated as a double run to accommodate student pickups and drop offs, explained Hetu. 

While managing transportation costs becomes increasingly difficult, Lakeland Catholic trustees made the decision during a regular board meeting in August that they would not introduce a fee for students that take the bus. 

“The trustees have made it a priority to continue again this year without implementing transportation fees. We utilize, as best as possible, the transportation funding received from the province to provide transportation services to students,” continued Hetu. 

LCSD has not charged transportation fees since 2016. 

St. Paul Education 

The trustees for St. Paul Education reluctantly made the decision to begin implementing busing fees for all riders, whether travelling from out of town or within town, at the end of June. 

St. Paul Education released a statement on June 1, outlining the difficult decision to start charging for student transportation, placing much of the blame on a lack of appropriate provincial funding. 

“As provincial funding has for the most part been frozen for the last three years, inflation has chipped away and is increasing expenses. Transportation has seen a 4.6 per cent increase in provincial funding, however extreme increases to insurance, fuel and equipment costs mean that this is not sufficient to cover rising costs,” stated St. Paul Education.  

“As a result, the division has no choice but to follow the lead of many other districts and implement a base transportation fee for all riders.” Previously, out of town riders did not have to pay base fees. 

Effective Sept. 1, in-town riders were subject to pay transportation fees that range from $275 to $675 annually. Fees for rural students range from $50 to $150 as a base, but additional costs may be added for things such as year-round or winter yard service. 

Despite introducing transportation fees for all St. Paul riders, the division still expects to run a transportation deficit. 

"A similar fee had been contemplated for several years and was always rejected, however this year there was little choice if buses are to remain in service," noted St. Paul Education. 

The division owns and operates 40 per cent of the buses transporting its students, while 60 per cent are contracted operators. 

Northern Lights Public Schools 

Trustees from Northern Lights made the decision to hold the line on the division’s current transportation fees for the 2022-23 school year. 

“We didn't add any new fees. In general, our board's been reluctant to institute any fees and at one point we had no transportation fees,” Nicole Garner, the communications officer for NLPS,  told Lakeland This Week. 

NLPS does not charge fees for student riders who live more than 2.4 km from their designated school. 

However, fees are charged for in-town transportation. Students who live within 2.4 km of their designated school in the communities of Bonnyville, Cold Lake and Lac La Biche fall into this category. 

Fees charged fluctuate depending on a students’ grade and the distance their home is located from the school. Annually, NLPS student transportation fees can range from $380 to $500. 

“Right now, we don't get any funding for students within 2.4 km of their school. [The] expectation is that they should be able to walk to school,” said Garner. 

The Northern Lights board has been lobbying the government to reconsider the 2.4 km radius funding model.  

Overall, the amount supplied by the province does not match the actual costs of providing student transportation services, says Garner, echoing sentiments expressed by St. Paul Education. 

“Compared to how much costs have gone up for contractors, it's actually not a lot. We would have liked to have seen more, but we are still appreciative,” said Garner. “But there's still definitely more work that needs to be done.” 

In June, the Alberta government announced it would be reinstating the Fuel Price Contingency Program to give public, separate, francophone and public charter school boards greater cost certainty while facing diesel prices that hit highs of $1.93 per litre at the end of the previous school year.  

The program was enacted retroactively to March and will remain in place for the 2022-23 school year. This is expected to provide millions of dollars in additional funding for student transportation, according to the province. 

The Alberta government has committed to continuing to monitor fuel costs over the 2022-23 school year and “will provide cost relief accordingly.” 

While the cost of fuel has gradually decreased over the past month, the monthly average retail price for diesel in Alberta was still $1.73 in September, according to Statistics Canada. 

Looking to another ongoing issue facing school divisions, Garner points out, “Increased dollars aren’t helping [to] get bus drivers trained any quicker.” 

Cancelled routes 

Northern Lights continued its in-house driver training program over the summer, and still they face driver shortages. The shortage relates to driver resignations and not having time to train bodies to replace them. 

“At the end of June, we thought we had all of our routes built – enough drivers to do all the routes... Over the summer, we became aware that we had some issues with our routes in Kikino,” said Garner. 

"We thought we were in good shape and then the same day [our] board meeting was happening we found out there were six more routes that have no drivers.” 

NLPS started the new school year with eight routes listed as cancelled, this included two routes in the Bonnyville area and four in the Cold Lake area. Drivers for Kikino routes remain unfilled. 

“There is no more room to shift buses around and combine buses if we don't have drivers, those routes just don't run,” said Garner. 

Conseil Scolaire Centre-Est 

Conseil Scolaire Centre-Est, like Lakeland Catholic, has no transportation fees downloaded onto families. 

Students who attend the Francophone schools in the region are often required to travel far distances to attend those schools. It has been a long-standing decision by Conseil Scolaire Centre-Est trustees not to charge transportation fees as a result of its regional school model. 

*With files from Rahma Dalmar 

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