Parents of Parkland School Division students say they’re concerned about the school busing system, and one problem area seems to be a transfer station where hundreds of children change buses every day.
Jennifer Rowe was one of several parents who contacted CBC News after learning about the most recent incident in which a kindergarten student was dropped off at the wrong stop on Friday.
Rowe said she and her husband were confident their daughter Kyla would be fine taking the school bus on her first day in kindergarten at Broxton Park School in Spruce Grove back in September.
But after school that day, Rowe said her husband — who was waiting at home for Kyla — called to say their daughter hadn’t arrived home.
“He told me that Kyla did not get off the bus and no one knows where she is at the moment,” Rowe said. “My heart dropped and I immediately started, myself, freaking out. This is my daughter and where is she?”
Rowe said she tried to reach the school division’s transportation department and eventually found that their six-year-old hadn’t changed buses at the transfer station. The situation was sorted out and within 30 minutes Kyla was home.
‘That transfer station is chaotic’
Rowe said the main problem was the transfer station at Greystone Middle School, where every day after school about 3,200 students from kindergarten to Grade 12 change buses.
“I’m sorry, but that transfer station is chaotic,” Rowe said.
“There’s about 30 or 40 buses at this one stop, and there’s children everywhere,” she said. “It’s like a sea of kids. It’s incredibly busy. It’s like a subway station in New York.
“It’s just busy. And then you’ve got five-year-olds that are trying to navigate their way to the other side of this transfer station to their bus.”
Rowe said there are monitors with bright yellow vests at the transfer station, but with so many children the younger ones can get lost.
The transfer point was also the key problem for Roxanne Dac’s five-year-old daughter.
Five-year-old Mckenna Dac was dropped off at the wrong bus stop in September. The kindergarten student got on the wrong bus at a busy bus transfer station.
Mckenna Dac had taken the bus to kindergarten a few times in September. But on Sept. 15, Mckenna was put on the wrong bus at the transfer station in Stony Plain operated by Parkland School Division, her mother said.
Mckenna was dropped off at her empty home, rather than at her day care. After some panicked calls, the little girl was picked up by her day-care provider.
Roxanne Dac said it’s too easy for young kids to get mixed up at the transfer station.
“They all have a bus pass, and a bus pass tag that shows the pick-up and drop off, and there’s also a scan card, which I thought would tell the bus driver when they’re on the right or wrong bus.”
Dac said she called Parkland School Division the next morning. When she finally got someone on the phone later that day, she was told her daughter was among about 10 children who got dropped at the wrong spot.
“It seemed like they couldn’t get me off the phone fast enough,” Dac said. “All I could keep saying was, ‘Please make sure this doesn’t happen again.’ “
Jordi Weidman, spokesperson for the school division, said the transportation department investigates whenever a student is dropped off at the wrong stop. But he said the organization doesn’t keep track of how often that happens.
Weidman said Parkland takes lost children very seriously.
“The safety and well-being of all our students is of the utmost priority,” he said. “I mean, we’re in the kid business and we think of the kids first.”
Jennifer Rowe would like to see more emphasis put on the youngest bus riders, especially kindergarten children.
“These kindergarteners, maybe they should all wear bright-red shirts or a tag saying, “Hi, my name is Kyla, and I’m supposed to be on this bus.”