Education minister works with Golden Hills to reduce bus times

Times Reporter

 

A new pilot project is coming to the Golden Hills School Division (GHSD) that could see bus times shortened for students. On March 2 Education Minister Thomas Lukaszuk announced the partnership between two rural school districts, the other being the Prairie Rose School Division, and the Alberta government.

“As I travel the province and meet with school boards and parents I’m finding out more and more that kids are spending, in some places, up to two hours on a bus, and I don’t want that to continue happening. So we are doing pilot projects with a few boards to see what can be done to reduce bus rides,” said Lukaszuk. 

“In some areas you can’t change that because the distance from home to school is so great that it takes a while for a kid to get there. So we are also looking at introducing technology to buses so kids can at least use that time productively”

The Rural Ride Time Reduction Project has been proposed for GHSD. Some of the current transportation routes are being redrafted and different options are currently being looked at. 

One option is to get the group of students that are furthest away and bring them all in on one bus, while having the other students along the route that are closer brought in on another. Another option is to add a route which sort of splits two into three, cutting down the number of students picked up per route, which should effectively cut down some of the bus time.

The actual planning of the routes is still taking place, though Superintendant of Schools for GHSD Bevan Daverne said some of the initial contact to families along the affected routes will take place this week. 

“Golden Hills is a pretty big district geographically and it impacts almost every area of the district. For us it means adding an additional, approximately, 15 bus runs. It impacts just about 130 kids directly and we know that there will be some indirect impact as well,” said Daverne. 

“We’re quite excited to see how this turns out but we realize at the same time this is temporary, it’s just from now until the end of the year. For some of the kids that have longer ride times we know that at least from now until the end of the year they get quite a change. 

“We’re hoping that’s something that will work out well for them, and we’re sure they are going to feel better about their bus ride. Where this takes us for next year though, we don’t know, so we have to wait and see what Alberta Education decides as a result of the pilot.”

Lukaszuk is also excited to see the project get underway, which begin at the end of the month. The pilot project will take place for a few months, after which Lukaszuk will meet with school boards, parents and, of course, students who have been a part of the project, and find out if there was any measureable benefit from it.

“If it works, if it actually makes a difference, then we’ll be instituting this province-wide,” said Lukaszuk.