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EDITORIAL: Province must fully fund additional bus seats

Adding to the number of students getting a bus ride to school shouldn't become a financial hardship for the Foothills School Division.
Comp Buses
A school bus drops off students at Foothills Composite High School/Alberta High School of Fine Arts.

Making more students eligible for the school bus each morning sounds like good news — and it certainly will turn out that way as long as the provincial government adequately funds this month’s announcement. 

Eliminating long walks or parent chauffeurs in favour of more big yellow buses on the road will make mornings easier in many homes, so lowering the distance students must live from school in order to get a ride is a good thing, however, like so many government announcements, the devil is in the details. 

The Foothills School Division already runs a significant shortfall — to the tune of $250,000 annually— when it comes to transportation costs, so finding seats for another 1,300 students that will soon become eligible could well have unwanted financial ramifications for a division that just last December  put a call out on social media asking the public to help with its lobbying efforts for greater transportation funding. 

Increasing the number of students being transported by more than 30 per cent could theoretically put it even further in the hole based on the current funding formula, forcing the division to pull even more money from the classroom. That's not a situation anyone wants, so it’s imperative this good news announcement — coincidentally made a couple of months before the next provincial election but one that won’t come into effect until well after the votes are counted — is fully funded. 

Already dealing with challenges when it comes to attracting and retaining bus drivers, the school division will undoubtedly face further issues when it must add 15 to 20 buses to an existing fleet of 87, so compounding that pain by also increasing financial woes just wouldn’t be fair. 

If the province deems that every child that lives beyond a certain threshold is entitled to a bus ride to school, then it must also ensure that the school divisions tasked to provide that service receive adequate funding to make that happen. 

That can’t get lost in the details. 

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