Surrey parents push for better school bus service for children with disabilities
School board vice-chair says money allocated for bus service was cut in half to $3.5 million
Some parents in Surrey, B.C., are pushing for better school bus service for students with disabilities after the transportation budget was cut in half earlier this year.
The chair of the Surrey Board of Education says the district needs more funding and will take its cause to B.C.'s new education minister.
Carmen Vogel, whose son Ryder is non-verbal and has autism, is one of the parents pushing for change. She said the cuts mean there are fewer buses to go around so kids with support needs are having to wait far longer to get to class.
"All the kids are sitting on the bus for extremely lengthy amounts of time, missing meaningful education time and sometimes arriving wet, exhausted, hungry."
That's been the case for Ryder, Vogel said, who has been arriving late to his Grade 8 classes.
"My son, in particular, is on the bus for an hour and 45 minutes in the morning when we are only five minutes away. We're also seeing that kids are not able to be picked up when the school day is done."
Vogel said this has left parents struggling to balance child care and work commitments.
Simrit Judge, whose son has complex needs and uses a wheelchair, said she relies on the bus to get her child to school because she has to work.
"I need him on the bus," she said. "I'm being told to go find day care or figure it out on [my] own. I don't have any other options than to send [him] on the bus for three-plus hours a day."
Gary Tymoschuk, chair of the Surrey Board of Education, confirmed money allocated for bus service was cut in half to $3.5 million this school year.
"Our hands are tied in that we just don't have the funding to be able to provide it," he said.
"We will work with the busing company and parents and families and find ways to make it as best as we possibly can given the circumstances."
Erika Cedillo of Inclusion B.C., a federation that advocates for people with disabilities, said school districts need to uphold inclusive education, noting that "the Supreme Court of Canada has established that the access or the supports to access education are mandatory."
B.C.'s Ministry of Education said it's up to each board to develop its own policy and budget for transportation, according to local needs and within the context of their total operating funding.
The province's last education minister, Rachna Singh, lost her seat in October's provincial election.
Tymoschuk said the board will soon meet with the new education minister, Lisa Beare.
"We hope that the provincial government will take a second look at properly funding public education in the province of B.C.," he said.
Meanwhile, parents hoping for change continue to wait. Inclusion B.C. says their only option could be to appeal the cuts further at the school board level.
"We all feel very defeated and we feel like our children are being failed drastically by the school system right now," Vogel said.
With files from Meera Bains