Car-pooling likely best option for Waimate students to Timaru
Car-pooling looks to be the main option for some Waimate students attending secondary schools in Timaru.
A meeting was held at Timaru Girls’ High School on Monday evening to try to resolve an issue of too few seats available on a school bus running from Waimate to Timaru.
‘‘We thought it would be a car-pool,’’ parent Penny Gray said. ‘‘We’ve got no other option, they’re not going to reinstate the bus service for us.’’
The Ministry of Education-funded bus service caters for Waimate pupils attending state-integrated schools in Timaru, Roncalli College and Craighead Diocesan School.
Spare seats available in the past have been taken up by others attending state schools like Timaru Girls’ High School and Timaru Boys’ High School.
However, demand had reached a level for students travelling to Roncalli and Craighead for the soon to begin school year, meaning those travelling to TGHS and TBHS would miss out.
‘‘It will be a big stretch doing carpooling, but we have to hammer it out,’’ Gray said.
‘‘I can’t do car-pooling because I work on a dairy farm and there are a lot of parents like that. We have a couple of other options.’’
Gray said 13 people attended
Monday’s meeting.
‘‘But we don’t know the number of parents who are affected. People come out of the woodwork.’’
She believed Waimate had to address the issue of why parents wanted their children to be educated at state secondary schools outside the town. Other pupils travel to secondary schools in Oamaru.
The Ministry of Education criteria to receive school transport assistance are:
■ For state integrated schools it must be the closest school of its type, that is the closest Catholic school if a Catholic education is chosen;
■ The child must live more than a certain distance from a school, for years 1-8 at least 3.2km from the school and year 9-13 at least 4.8km from school
■ There must be no suitable public transport.
‘‘. . . they’re not going to reinstate the bus service for us.’’ Penny Gray