STUDENTS TO SHARE BUSES
School divisions aim to cut costs
In a pilot project they hope will save money, Regina Catholic and Public school divisions will collaborate on busing students to their southeast joint-use school beginning in September.
About 150 students from Ecole Wascana Plains School will ride alongside 410 Ecole St. Elizabeth School students on buses from LP3 Transportation Solutions, which are contracted by the Catholic school division.
The public school division, which owns its school buses, will save money by parking three or four of them for the year.
“This is the beginning of potentially a new chapter,” Regina Public School Board chair Katherine Gagne said at an announcement outside of the two schools on Wednesday.
“This year, we felt it was important just to start off with one pilot site,” said director of education Greg Enion, “to try to work out those details and make sure that we are able to do it in an efficient manner as we roll it out to other schools.”
Money saved will be spent in classrooms and on teachers and educational assistants, said Enion.
Regina Public plans to spend three per cent of its budget, or $7.4 million, on transportation in 201819. Regina Catholic plans to spend $6 million, or 5.2 per cent.
After drastic budget cuts to education funding for the 2017-18 year, the provincial government encouraged school boards to look at sharing resources, including transportation.
The two school boards agreed a year ago to begin discussions on joint busing in September.
Enion said he didn’t have an exact number on estimated cost savings.
Next year, the two divisions will analyze the data, as well as “obviously collecting some feedback from our stakeholders,” said Enion.
“Then we would have further discussions going into next year on whether we want to expand the pilot.”
Shared busing means some minor changes for students and staff.
Bell times have been adjusted. The school day will start and end eight minutes earlier at Wascana Plains. For St. Elizabeth students, the school day starts and ends five minutes later.
Students will have to walk to collector stops for bus pickup.