School buses will be running in Grey and Bruce counties for the first day of school after all.
The Bluewater District School Board and the Bruce-Grey Catholic District School Board shared that they’ve come to an agreement with local school bus operators late Thursday afternoon.
“We are glad to confirm that an agreement in principle has been reached, and student transportation will proceed as normal for the start of the school year in September,” the school boards said. “We recognize the uncertainty this situation may have caused, and we appreciate families’ continued patience.”
Earlier this week, School Bus Ontario, which represents Ontario’s school bus operators, cautioned that if no deal was struck by Friday, parents would need to find other ways to get their kids to school on the first day.
The six bus operators in both counties within the Student Transportation Service Consortium of Grey Bruce handle over 300 bus routes. They transport 16,000 students daily.
This group has been without a contract since the end of June.
Details about the agreement haven’t been disclosed yet. However, the school boards confirmed that negotiations with bus operators were conducted with support from the Ministry of Education.
“Throughout this process, we worked to balance the cost pressures facing operators with our responsibility to manage public funds responsibly,” the boards added.
Now that buses are secured for the first day of school, parents are asked to complete all usual back-to-school transportation tasks as soon as possible. This includes logging into the Edulog Parent Portal app and opting in for transportation for each child. If they don’t do this, students won’t be assigned a bus route, according to the boards.
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