Bus fuss: School district patches together plan to replace suspended buses
The Newfoundland and Labrador English School District has lined up contractors for Monday morning to replace roughly 50 school buses taken off routes to 22 schools last week.
Terry Hall, an assistant director with the district, told CBC on Sunday afternoon the district has been working with contractors to make sure they have replacement drivers and buses lined up to cover the routes.
"We have a number of contractors in the city that had some additional buses that they could jump in and help us out with," said Hall.
Some drivers, but no buses, from Kelloway
"As well as we have some of our board-owned that we were able to manouevre around with no impact, and be able to bring them into St. John's to help us out for a couple of days."
None of the buses belong to Kelloway Investments, which was suspended over what the district said were safety concerns from inspections on several buses, but Hall said at least some of the drivers are Kelloway drivers.
"If there's approved drivers, as per our documents, that are operating with the suspended contractor, and they're willing to come and help drive buses belonging to other contractors, that is always welcome," said Hall.
Drivers doing practice runs on weekend
"What it does, it gives some familiarity with the routes, and familiarity with the students that they'll be continuing to carry."
Most of the drivers belong to the other contractors, said Hall, who added the district has done its best to place drivers on routes in areas they're familiar with, and drivers were doing practice runs on the weekend to help make Monday's runs go smoothly for the roughly 3,500 students relying on buses.
Owner Jim Kelloway told CBC on Friday that he was "being railroaded" by the school district, adding government inspectors looked at buses that weren't in active use.
"I was just as much shocked as parents out there. A couple of buses had issues," he said.
"They're buses that's not even being used on the road. All these new buses didn't have any issues regards to any safety concerns for children."
Kelloway met with the district Friday morning. It's not clear yet what the long-term plan will be.
