The daily list of family chores grows by one each winter – checking if the school bus is operating.
With a lot of winter still to get through, parents and students will spend many early mornings listening to radio stations, waiting for a phone call or checking their school division websites.
“It’s not something you take lightly,” said Prairie South School Division director Brenda Edwards. “It’s critical to us that parents are notified.”
Administrators make decisions by 6 a.m. to allow enough time to let the public know about bus schedule changes. When a recent storm swept through the region, Edwards was on the phone as early as 5:30 to determine which buses would not operate.
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She said 7 a.m. is the absolute latest buses could be cancelled in Prairie South, which is headquartered in Moose Jaw, Sask., but encompasses an area larger than Prince Edward Island.
Buses may be cancelled due to bad weather but schools remain open. Bus drivers can also cancel service based on local weather conditions along their routes.
Just before Christmas, Prairie South implemented a new transportation web page where all bus cancellations are posted. On Jan. 12, for example, a day after another storm, nine buses were listed at www.prairiesouth.ca/transportation.
Edwards said local radio stations use that page for their information and are able to broadcast accurate information posted by school officials.
Weather policies vary by division. In neighbouring Prairie Valley, for example, bus service is suspended when the temperature with or without the wind chill is -40 C or colder, or when visibility is limited due to blizzard or fog, or roads are unsafe because of ice or drifting snow.
In Chinook’s Edge School Division near Innisfail, Alta., bus cancellation occurs at -35 C or colder. In blizzards or other bad weather, individual bus drivers make the choices.
In Manitoba’s Interlake School Division, based in Stonewall, schools are closed when all the buses are cancelled, according to the division website. Buses don’t run when the temperature is below -40 C, the wind chill is -45 C or the weather is unsafe.
Edwards added that she never hears complaints that buses should have been cancelled but weren’t, or were cancelled and shouldn’t have been.
The new web page offers a place for comments and she said it will be interesting to see if parents use that forum to express those kinds of concerns.
