Sudbury school board wants more input with bus consortium

School board trustees in Sudbury compared the secrecy of the Canadian Senate to the local school bus consortium at a meeting Wednesday night. The English Catholic board is frustrated by a lack of information about how the consortium makes decisions.

Trustees say they have been fielding a lot of phone calls this winter from parents upset about cancelled buses on snowy days.

Board chair Jody Cameron said, when a parent calls a trustee, most of the time it's about transportation.

"'They're not picking me up', or 'they'd like them to pick me up or I want to be picked up at two locations': those are the types of calls we get quite frequently,” he said.

“I think they would be surprised that we really have very little input."

A staff member from each of the four school boards sits on the Sudbury Student Services Consortium, but some English Catholic trustees feel an elected official should have a seat there as well.

"It's great that we do it as a collective of four boards to realize those economies of scale and save money,” Cameron noted.

“However, it's still our responsibility as a board. As trustees, we get quite frustrated that we have no control over this."

Cameron said the Sudbury English Catholic school board puts some $5 million a year into busing, which goes to the student services consortium.