By Meagan Kelly
The wheels are in motion for the city’s two main school boards to work together on having youngsters from public and Catholic schools on the same yellow school buses.
The Ottawa-Carleton District School Board last week approved a plan to set up a committee that will help plan the formation of a transportation consortium with the Ottawa-Carleton Catholic School Board.
This means the two boards will team up under one organization to transport their students, with the first meeting to be held sometime in November.
The province initiated a plan in the summer to have school boards across the province create transport teams.
“Buses aren’t Roman Catholic or public, they’re buses,” says Richard Patten, Liberal MPP for Ottawa Centre.
“So come on, let’s be as efficient as we possibly can with the resources we have available,” he says.
Right now, each board has its own bus system, which has created problems when Catholic and public school buses pick up children along the street, backing up traffic.
Now, trustees and superintendents from both boards will decide exactly how to provide more efficient bus services. This could mean everything from amalgamating their mapping systems, to harmonizing start times and expanding routes so the two boards can use each others buses.
Lynn Graham, chair of the Ottawa-Carleton District Board, says she is “cautiously optimistic” about the project.
“I think it’s a great idea, and I think the public is more than anxious to see that the school boards are co-operating,” she says. “In very practical terms, I’m not sure how it’s going to unfold here in Ottawa.”
Graham says she is not sure if it will help deal with differences in transportation service and funding between the boards.
She says a $7-million difference in transportation funding has meant the public board does not bus high school students after Grade 9, while the Catholic board does.
This gap is a result of the province not having changed the way it funds school boards since 1998, says Graham.
Most boards are getting the same amount of money, or less, than eight years ago.
David Leach, superintendent of finance and administration for the Ottawa-Carleton Catholic School Board, says he thinks they will find a way to make the partnership work.
However, he is concerned about whether it will be worth the cost.
“We agree we should be efficient and effective as possible,” says Leach.
“The question in our mind, however, is that the school boards across the province are very very different in size and geography . . . it would make more sense in more remote areas. You would achieve more savings.”
Leach says the two boards would make one of the province’s largest consortiums, which could end up costing as much money as it saves.
Both he and Graham say what needs to addressed first is the way Ontario funds education.
But Patten says these partnerships could actually be seen as a stepping stone to change.
“Rather than changing the whole thing at once which is an enormous cost . . . I see them kind of eating away at it slowly, bit by bit,” says Patten.
The province plans to review the partnership next year, to decide if current transportation funding levels are appropriate.
Michael Carson, superintendent of facilities for the district board, says it is hard to tell what the results of the partnership will be or how it’s going work.
However, as members begin planning in November, he says he hopes they will not keep their eyes on the road ahead, and leave the issues between the two boards about funding at the back of the bus.
“We’re very hopeful that two boards can move forward. There are still a lot of unknowns for future funding, but we need to get on with the planning of the consortia,” says Carson.
“We have to figure out the best way to get the students to school.”