No bus ride home for some students as P.E.I.'s French schools grapple with driver shortage
Students along one of the bus routes to École François-Buote in Charlottetown needed to find an alternate ride home on Tuesday, as the French Language School Board tries to deal with a bus driver shortage.
Students on school bus route 368 will need to find alternate ways to get home Wednesday too, according to the school board.
"Our drivers are conscientious. They work hard," said Nathalie Malo, transportation manager for the school board. But with the shortage of drivers — especially substitutes — even one absent driver can cause cancellations.
The French school board has 29 bus routes, but just 10 substitute drivers. Officials said École François-Buote has 11 bus routes and 11 bus drivers with only two substitutes available.
The school also has some very long routes, as far as Montague, Morell, New London and Crapaud.
On Tuesday, one bus driver was unable to drive their route. One of the remaining drivers was able to cover in the morning, picking up the students on route 368 and getting them to school an hour and a half late.
School officials decided to cancel the afternoon run on the route. It would have been 6 p.m. or later by the time all students got home by bus, if a second driver returned to do the route. Instead, parents were told they'd have to pick up their kids.
Shortage of drivers across province
P.E.I.'s tight labour market is making it hard to keep enough drivers in the pool of substitutes, according to school officials.
They cite wages and hours of work as possible reasons why. Substitute drivers receive 80 per cent of the hourly wage of full-time drivers, according to the union's collective agreement.
Substitute drivers are paid for 2.5 hours for making one run a day, and for five hours for making two runs.
"It's hard to find people who want to work at those hours," said Malo.
Three new substitute drivers for the French board will start training next month. They should be ready to start work in late December.
One of the new drivers will be assigned to École François-Buote, according to Malo.
Parents of students on route 368 will also have to pick their children up on Wednesday after school, according to school officials.
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