THUNDER BAY — Changes to student busing eligibility this school year have led to a concerning decline in attendance, says the chair of the Lakehead District School Board.
By the end of November, nearly half of students who lost access to bus service had worse attendance than they did with bus service, according to a recent report.
The Ontario government changed the funding formula for student transportation earlier this year, doubling most distance requirements for students to be eligible for busing.
Lakehead District School Board trustees will vote Tuesday on sending a letter to Jill Dunlop, the minister of education, expressing the board’s concerns about how the eligibility criteria is affecting access to education and raising possible weather-related risks.
In the letter, the board states the universal distance standard fails to account for regional realities.
“Since implementing the universal transportation framework in the province in Ontario, we implemented it in September, our staff has noticed a very alarming trend with the data,” said Leah Vanderwey, chair of the board. “They took a look at students that had access to transportation last year and then the same students that don't have access to transportation this year and what they're noticing is a decline in attendance at school.”
By the end of September, attendance was down with the affected students by 38 per cent and by the end of November, 49 per cent of those students were missing school.
Of the students with declining attendance, nearly 52 per cent identify as First Nations, Metis or Inuit.
In the letter to the minister, the board said “this is both a human rights and an equity of access to education issue.”
The school board is also worried about weather-related risks with students walking 20 to 40 minutes to school in the cold.
Vanderwey said according to the Thunder Bay District Health Unit, there are an average 18 days of temperatures below -25C in the city where Toronto only had 0.7 days with temperatures that low.
The Canadian Pediatric Society and the Montreal Children’s Hospital advise caregivers to limit children’s time outdoors in those temperatures as children lose heat from their bodies faster than adults and the risk of frostbite increases.
“It’s important to keep the attendance up because the more days that you’re at school, the more that you are part of the whole school community and students achieve better,” said Vanderwey, noting the data is only from the fall.
“We haven’t actually even hit winter yet, so that’s a trend that’s not going in the right direction.”
If the letter is approved by the trustees, the board will ask the province to do a regional review of the transportation framework and include input form northern and rural school boards as well as making sure the funding stays in line with inflation.
