GHSD caters to parents’ choice through transportation system

By Miriam Ostermann, Associate Editor

Golden Hills School Division (GHSD) is introducing a universal transportation system to accommodate parents’ choice.
Currently, the district operates 75 routes and transports 3,500 students, of which nearly 1,700 students are located in Strathmore.
While most school districts’ bus systems only pick up students in a specific attendance area for that local school, GHSD has already been accommodating many families and their choice of school over the years.
As a result of some pick-up time and bus stop adjustments, Strathmore students will now be provided with transportation to any of the Golden Hills schools in the area come this fall.
“This is enhancing what is already a very good system and a system that is not necessarily available elsewhere in the province, because we own our own buses and organize and operate our own routes; that’s part of why we have the ability to do this,” said Bevan Daverne, superintendent for GHSD.
“In Strathmore for the last number of years we’ve tried to support parents with their choice of school. Let’s say a parent lives in school A but they want (their children) to attend school B; 80 per cent of the time we’ve been able to help them out with a bus ride. What’s different for next year (is) that becomes 100 per cent.”
Although details of individual routes are still in discussion, Daverne explained more than one bus may be stopping in each community as well as making stops at two or more schools.
The changes are expected to have minimal effects on the transportation budget, which together with the plant operations and maintenance budget has been sitting at a stalemate for the past six years. Daverne said the budget doesn’t cover all transportation; and with the additional cost of the carbon levy and a rise in natural gas and power bills, the school board is scraping by to make ends meet.
“The reality is we have to pay to heat our buildings, we have to pay for electricity, we have to keep them safe, and we don’t get enough money to be able to do that effectively,” said Daverne.
“For a number of years we’ve had to make an adjustment in the area of plant operation and maintenance in order to make the budget work. That is happening in almost every rural school division in the province. It’s a challenge everywhere. We have continued to make cuts in all areas to keep those budgets as manageable as we can, but at this point we are running out of choices.”
Golden Hills School Division ran a $226,000 deficit for its transportation budget for the 2017-18 year and a total budget deficit of $1.1 million for the same period. For next year, the division is projecting a total budget deficit of $3.2 million, which was passed at the last board meeting on May 29, where funds will be taken from GHSD reserves.
“The one that is putting us in the red is our general transportation budget because we run a lot of buses to a lot of schools and the government just doesn’t cover the cost of that. It’s something that as a board we’re bringing to the attention of the province constantly,” said Laurie Huntley, chair of the GHSD board.
“This coming year for transportation and for plant operations and maintenance we’re going to have to dip into financial reserves to offset the cost of that. Things like the carbon tax has made a major impact when you start running buses for the amount of kilometres like we do. That kind of tax is a tough one to handle, lots of challenges for sure.”
Golden Hills School Division will be moving ahead with their plan to offer a universal transportation system to its students in the fall.