SLEEPY HEADS
Parents oppose extra early times for CBE school bus pickups
A growing number of parents in the city’s deep south are joining together to lobby the Calgary Board of Education over excessively early schedules that force them to wake youngsters at 6 a.m. to catch their bus.
Grades 4 to 9 students in Auburn Bay and Cranston who attend the Gifted and Talented Education program at Louis Riel School in Oakridge have to catch the bus anywhere between 6:50 a.m. and 7:10 a.m. to arrive for a 7:55 a.m. bell.
While nearby community schools and other GATE programs have bell times closer to 9 a.m., the Louis Riel program, which buses kids from all over the south, has one of the earliest start times in the city.
The CBE has told the parents they are in the “alternative” GATE program by choice, but it is the children’s teachers who specifically recommended they attend Louis Riel because their needs were not being met in a regular classroom. Children who are gifted are considered special needs students, who require individual programs to ensure they meet their potential.
“It was my son’s own teacher who said that he should go to Louis Riel, that he was too far ahead of the other kids in terms of math and logic,” said Jian Shen, whose son is in Grade 4. “He was very bored.
“But he really loves Louis Riel. He loves his teachers, the program is challenging, and he’s made so many friends.”
Shen adds that in addition to being exhausted by the end of the day, her son cannot attend any evening activities because she needs to get him to bed by 8 p.m.
Shen says she has spoken to several parents along the route and many are concerned their growing preteens are not getting enough sleep. At the same time, they feel torn because they want to meet their kids’ academic needs at the Oakridge School.
Shen added that while many parents struggled with a similar schedule last year, the route has become longer with the addition of two new communities, Legacy and Walden, which force the bus to cross the Bow River along Highway 22X, adding another half-hour to the route.
Parents have asked the CBE to add those communities to the much closer Somerset route, or at least consider switching their route with a community school on a later start time.
The only other middle schools which offer the GATE program are in the city ’s northwest, at Hillhurst School with an 8:45 a.m. bell time and Queen Elizabeth, which starts at 8:30 a.m.
“They have much later bell times, so I don’t understand why ours has to be so early,” said Shen.
Cindy Lui, who has two boys attending Louis Riel, in grades 4 and 7, has been lobbying the CBE for over a year but says her letters have had no impact.
“They haven’t done anything. They have not changed a thing.”
Lui says she often struggles to pull her boys out of bed at 6 a.m. to make their 6:56 a.m. bus stop.
“Sometimes, they fall asleep on the bus coming home. It is a very long day for them. But I feel like I have no choice because this is the only school that will meet their needs.”
Daisy Yu, whose Grade 8 son has attended GATE at Louis Riel for four years, said two years ago the morning bell was at 8:30 a.m.
And while more parents than ever are now lobbying the CBE to change the school start back to the later time, Yu says concerns have fallen on deaf ears.
“We have been told by the CBE that they have no control over it, but I don’t understand why,” Yu said, adding that when she sent a letter to CBE last year the only change they made was to make all Auburn Bay departure times five minutes earlier. “That’s their solution to the problem, they make it worse.”
But Yu says her son, who is now doing Grade 11 math, says he was always bored in the regular program before he attended GATE.
Despite all of the concerns, Carrie Edwards, CBE director of transportation, said it is unlikely Louis Riel will change its bell time.
“The cost of a yellow school bus is based on a block of time,” Edwards said. “The more routes a single bus can run during this block of time, the more cost-effective the transportation service is.
“Aligning bus times allows a bus to run two and, in some cases, three routes during each block of time.
“These changes were not made without consideration of the impacts on students and their families. The CBE is not planning to make any further adjustments to bell times so soon after this system-wide change.”