Prairie South School Division is facing a shortage of bus drivers — including casual operators — that is affecting its ability to transport students throughout the division.
Six years ago, Prairie South had 115 regular bus drivers and 84 causal drivers, while those numbers dropped to 107 and 64 respectively last year, according to the 2020-21 transportation accountability report.
Bus drivers transported 2,591 students last year on 107 urban and rural routes while travelling 18,012 kilometres. In comparison, 2,807 youths rode the bus during the 2016-17 year.
Lonny Holmes, transportation manager, told trustees during the Feb. 2 board meeting that his department is attempting to address the decline of driver numbers through various initiatives.
“Some drivers in the Moose Jaw area that do double runs, so that’s about 12 of them,” he said.
“So that does a couple things for us: it creates a situation where we use less buses than we have to use on a daily basis (and) less drivers because those people do two routes in a day. Some schools have different start times. As we have struggled to find drivers, it just makes it more and more practical for us to do that.”
According to the transportation report, there are 89 total rural routes — including 10 in Assiniboia and 21 for Lindale — and 28 urban routes in the Moose Jaw area.
Recruiting more bus drivers is important, considering the shortage is continuing and this is a big concern, said Holmes.
The department continues to recruit regularly via online advertising, dropping flyers in mailboxes, and promoting these positions to school community councils so they can recruit in their municipalities.
“The more and more we have spare drivers, the more and more we have happy full-time drivers because they can get people to fill in for them, and the better we are to getting kids to school on a regular basis,” he added.
Some parents have had to drive their children to school because there were no casual drivers to fill in, which means they aren’t receiving the services they should since the division is not doing its duty, said trustee Lew Young. Since these people pay taxes, he wondered if parents could be compensated.
Ryan Boughen, director of education, replied that parents should contact Holmes and he will refer to an administrative procedure (AP) to determine whether compensation is possible.
“Our practice right now is we don’t provide a lot of conveyance — and we haven’t — so that’s why we’re examining our conveyance practices,” Boughen added, “because we’re having more of these issues where the parents are transporting their children to school.”
Bus ride times
Last year, average ride times in rural areas stayed the same at 33 minutes, while average ride times in urban areas increased to 15 minutes from 13 minutes in 2019-20, Holmes said.
“Ride times are always a huge concern,” he remarked. “The one ride times that’s (also) concerning is that one where we get kids riding over 75 minutes.”
While bus planning software makes ride times look horrendous, the reality is often different from what’s on paper, Holmes continued. If not every student is on the bus, that shortens daily ride times for others.
Holmes’ report showed 46 students rode the bus in the morning for longer than 75 minutes last year. He noted that some students’ rides could be 15 minutes while others could ride for 88 minutes.
The board has 10 budget priorities that include bus ride times, said Boughen. Since the goal is to reduce priorities to about four, division administration can build the 2022-23 budget with ride times in mind.
The next PSSD meeting is Tuesday, March 1.
