ALMAGUIN – Student options for getting to and from work, friend’s homes and other places in Almaguin have been greatly restricted as new zeal is exercised to enforce bussing policy.

Near North District School Board (NNDSB) students are no longer able to take a bus anywhere except for trips to and returning home from school.

Previously students were able to use school buses to go to friend’s homes, work and appointments, provided they had approval from their parents/guardians and the school.

“I don’t think they are very happy about it,” said Almaguin Highlands Secondary School (AHSS) principal Ron Witmer of student reaction to the change in policy.

He says that just recently an edict came down from NNDSB administrators to end the free ride for students. The board had tried to implement the policy in East Parry Sound a couple of years ago, but stopped after student protest, especially at AHSS, made administrators rethink their position.

Witmer says the ‘only to and from home bus policy’ actually never went away, but that East Parry Sound simply enjoyed an unofficial holiday from it.

“I don’t know if anything has changed. The board has had a policy about only providing transportation to and from home for some time. . . We had been doing transfers in house and we’ve been told we can’t do it anymore,” said Witmer.

Tom Shultz is the NNDSB superintendent in charge of busing.

He says the implementation of the policy in Almaguin was brought on by a number of factors, including complaints from bus operators and worries about equitable treatment.

“What’s been happening is that there are students riding on other buses. The operators have come to us and said this is something we are not being paid for, which is correct. So we had to look at what we are providing across the board and we came to a conclusion to end the practise.”

He added, “It was a matter of treating the students from Almaguin the same as we do students from elsewhere.”

It is an argument that isn’t washing with students and parents.

“I think everyone is pretty upset about it,” said Student Administrative Council president Maxime Martin. She says students from outlying areas have been relying on the bus transfer system to get homework done and to access extra-curricular activities – especially sports.

“It’s made it a lot harder for students that do well in sports. A lot of the training we do is after school and while there are the late buses, a lot of the practices go until 7 p.m. at night. So students get a ride home to a friend’s house and come to school with them in the morning.

“Some students spend the night at a friend’s house close to school the night before a trip if they have to catch a bus the next day – say at five in the morning for track and field – so their parents wouldn’t have to drive first thing in the morning.”

It is also making it harder to get homework done.

“In a lot of areas we don’t have high speed (Internet) so we would go to a friend’s house and get our homework done all at once,” said Martin.

“We weren’t aware necessarily of hardship that could be caused,” said Shultz. “We just looked at students wanting to go to places other than their homes.”

Shultz says there has been no costing done by the bus operators, the bus consortium or the NNDSB as to what the cost of the bus transfer is or could be in the future.

“Because we don’t know how many students want to (transfer to other buses) we have no real way of figuring out a cost,” said Shultz. “We would only be speculating on what the costs might be.”

Witmer says that on average about a dozen students request a transfer in any given week.

“It really depends on what’s going on extracurricularly,” said Witmer.

The decision to cut off the bus transfers is also upsetting to local trustee and board chair Al Bottomley.

“The buses are a socializing factor and it’s sad to see what is a tradition in this area come to an end,” said Bottomley.

He says that between bus operators, the transportation consortium that operates the busing system, legal opinions and pressure from the province he thinks NNDSB administrators didn’t have much choice.

“The ministry (of Education) did an audit on our buses and they said that we have a surplus. . . They did say that we have a surplus so maybe we should pay back that money. Of course we don’t have a surplus, we just used it for things like all day Kindergarten. . . but the ministry is getting very picky about these things.”

Bottomley also noted that the policy isn’t just causing stress in Almaguin but in every rural area that the NNDSB covers.

Sticking with the social aspect, Bottomley says he realizes that the change is going to make it much harder for students to spend time with one another outside school hours.

“If you’re in Burk’s Falls and if your girlfriend is in Powassan it is now much harder to go see her – especially if you don’t drive. . . It really is a shame because we have the only transportation system in this area,” said Bottomley.

Martin’s parents think the same.

“My parents think all of the extra driving is ridiculous,” said Martin. “I just think that during this crisis of global warming it is even more so.”

The Almaguin News floated the suggestion of students paying bus operators directly for rides on routes other than their own to Shultz and Bottomely.

Both said it may be an option with Bottomley having the most enthusiastic response.

“I’d like to bring that up. I don’t see why we can’t (have students pay fares) . . . I’ll see what the ramifications of that would be,” said Bottomley.

“I suppose that would be an option. There would have to be some approvals for something like that,” said Shultz.