Elementary and secondary school students will have longer bus travel times, longer distances to bus stops, and potentially longer walking distances without bus transportation available, if changes are not made before the start of the 2027-28 school year.
In February, Upper Canada District School Board trustees were updated by Student Transportation of Eastern Ontario officials on a financial hole caused by changes by Ontario’s Ministry of Education to its funding for bus transportation. The ministry is changing from a per student to per bus funding model. Last month, The Leader reported that STEO would have a deficit of $8 million in 2027-28, and that current bus distance and ride time standards would have to be lowered to the provincial standard. For rural schools and rural education, this is going to have a considerable negative effect on students and families.
Changing bus distance qualifications for Grade 9-12 students will adversely affect our local high school, Seaway District High School. Students who live within 3.2 kilometres would no longer qualify for bus transportation. The current standard is two kilometres. This means students living as far east as Saver Road, as far north as Stampville Road, and along County Road 2 to nearly the Grant Quarry will have to walk to school, presenting serious safety issues on these busy county and local roads. Increasing elementary school walking distances to 1.6 kilometres for Grades 1-3 students adds safety risk as well for obvious reasons. The transportation standard for Kindergarten-aged students would remain unchanged.
Another issue is the distance to a bus stop. Presently it is 0.6 kilometres, but the provincial standard is 0.8 to 1.6 kilometres for Grades 1-8 and 1.6 to 3.2 kilometres for Grades 9-12. In rural environments such as South Dundas and really any rural school in SDG Counties, this is a significant safety issue. For those with access to bus transportation still, they will be in for longer bus rides, as the provincial standard allows for up to a 90-minute one-way trip for a high school student.
Clearly, this provincial standard and the funding change do not reflect the realities of a school board having a majority of students living and being educated in rural Ontario. The funding switch to per-bus funding has correctly been called by UCDSB officials as “counter-intuitive” and rewarding inefficiency.
In cities like Toronto and Ottawa, there are plenty of options for transporting students to school. In fact, many students live close enough to their schools that they never have to take a school bus. But students in rural Ontario do not enjoy that luxury. Students in South Dundas, SDG Counties, and other rural communities should not be penalized based on geography, which is what the Ministry of Education is doing.
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