After a frustrating meeting with representatives of the Trillium Lakelands District School Board (TLDSB) last week, Dysart et al and Minden Hills mayors, Murray Fearrey and Bob Carter, said they will now take a school busing issue to the province.
Fearrey and Carter said they were told the new busing rules – stating elementary-aged students living within 1.6 kilometres of school, and high school students within 3.2 kilometres, aren’t eligible to be bused – were set by the Ministry of Education a few years ago.
Carter said, “each board put them into place over a period of time but they hadn’t gotten to Haliburton and Minden yet. This is the year they got to it.”
Carter and Fearrey are worried about the danger of children walking country roads, particularly as Daylight Saving Time ends Nov. 3, bringing darkness in the morning and evening.
The Minden Hills mayor said the board representatives said they sent staff to drive Highlands’ roads, but were not concerned.
“We suggested that perhaps the roads in July and in January are different, but that didn’t phase them too much,” Carter said.
“They gave us some examples of new areas in Huntsville, but it’s a lot different walking on a street that has no sidewalks in a subdivision in the middle of a city, as opposed to Hwy. 118, or Bobcaygeon Road, or CRD. 121.” He said the reps rebutted they have a school in Kirkfield, and in other rural areas.
Fearrey said he could not understand the answers, and while trustees are “honest and good” people he feels they rubber stamped an administrative decision.
Carter added TLDSB indicated they had only two public complaints. He asked whom people should contact if not happy and was told Patricia Hayward, transportation services supervisor, and Tim Ellis, superintendent of business services.
Carter said he was “shocked by the nonchalance” of the responses given, particularly after driving the roads children are now walking. “There’s a lot of dangerous roads that don’t even have shoulders.”
Fearrey said he was “annoyed” and “I just can’t believe the process.”
The Minden Hills mayor added townships such as Minden and Dysart can’t suddenly build sidewalks, hire crossing guards, and install flashing lights as they are expensive. Nor does he know where they would put crossing guards. In Minden, he said there are quirky areas in front of the post office, at Bobcaygeon Road and Water Street, and at Bobcaygeon and Deep Bay roads.
Fearrey said they cannot do maintenance to offset the changes as, “we can hardly afford what we’re doing now. We can’t start trying to get out before the buses, or before the children walk to and from school, we only run the plows one time a day.”
Carter said, “these kids are going to be going to school in the dark. If it’s snowing, we will have plows, we will have icy roads. It’s not like we can put out some cones, and put a sidewalk or a protected area in place, because some of these roads aren’t even wide enough for two cars.
“I don’t want this to be another one where the province reduces services in a department and then turns to the municipality to pick up the slack. They don’t raise taxes but make us raise taxes to pay for these things we are really not set up to do.”
He added not all families have a second car for driving kids to school, and in some cases, parents have to be at work before school starts, and after school ends.
Fearrey said on Oct. 18, he would be contacting MPP Laurie Scott about the situation. The two mayors will also be pushing to have a delegation at the Rural Ontario Municipal Association (ROMA) conference in Toronto in January.
“The ministry of education can’t do a one rule fits all scenario, particularly when talking rural Ontario, this is ludicrous,” Carter said.
Fearrey said he told TLDSB, “I wouldn’t be surprised if there is an accident here because you can’t walk on some of these roads in the winter.”
