Update: 3:17 p.m. Tuesday
Upper Canada District School Board Executive Superintendent Chris Boulay says in a statement to the Vista Radio Newsroom that “The Upper Canada District School Board is working with Student Transportation of Eastern Ontario to better understand the significant delay in getting students home, including the breakdown in communication between the bus company and families and the school, and to identify measures to prevent a similar situation in the future.”
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A Kemptville parent is demanding a formal investigation into what she says was a student safety and communications failure.
Heather Cranek says her 5-year-old son’s regular school bus ride from South Branch Elementary on Monday afternoon turned into a two-hour ordeal that highlights a systemic breakdown in how children are accounted for.
Cranek says her son was supposed to arrive at his daycare stop at 3:50 p.m. but instead he didn’t arrive until 5:55 p.m.
She says it started when his regular bus didn’t show up at the school and he was put on a different bus that was driven 20 kilometers out of town to complete an entirely separate bus run in Spencerville.
During that trip, Cranek says students were transferred between different buses on a country road, without any prior notification or consent.
She says when concerned parents called Student Transportation of Eastern Ontario and the school for updates, they were met with conflicting timelines and a distinct lack of clear answers.
Cranek says her son told her that children were crying during the ordeal and he was then anxious about going back to school on Tuesday morning.
In a letter to parents from South Branch Principal Sherry Jessup, provided to the Vista Radio Newsroom, Jessup says she communicated directly with Student Transportation of Eastern Ontario (STEO) and she adds that families should have received direct notification from the bus operator advising them of the delay and providing an estimated arrival time.
Cranek tells the Vista Radio Newsroom that the response isn’t enough.
“We rely on these people to keep our kids safe, so what if there was an emergency? They also need to apologize to these kids who were directly involved.”
Cranek adds parents deserve absolute transparency on who authorized these transfers, how children were accounted for during the switch, and what immediate protocols will be implemented to ensure families are never left scrambling to find their kids again.
A call and email to STEO from the Vista Radio Newsroom for comment have not yet been returned.
