Each bus must have at least eight eligible pupils under Ministry rules. Photo: RNZ
A South Canterbury farming family says government cuts to school bus services has created another barrier to getting rural children to school.
The Ministry of Education reviewed its daily funded bus routes last year, terminating 38, shortening or extending 126, merging some and creating six new ones.
Ministry-run services required at least eight eligible pupils per bus, a rule thatwas met with pushback from rural principals and schools across the motu.
Students eligible for transport assistance must attend their closest state or state-integrated school, live at least 3.2 kilometres from school for primary or 4.8 kilometres for secondary, and have no other public transport options, according to Ministry rules.
St Andrews Primary School, south of Timaru, had its four mini-buses merged into two larger ones and its routes changed, which resulted in much longer journeys for the small school community. One school parent reported a 20-minute journey became 70 minutes after the review.
School board chair and father-of-two Duncan Scott said the review caused many issues for school families, including some who had to abandon the service altogether, due to their own work requirements.
"The school bus budget was cut and it's caused a lot of hassle for a lot of families, having to travel further distances to the bus stops, children are on the buses for a lot longer than they should be and parents... it's the big thing for them. A lot of them can't use the bus, so they're dropping their kids to school, so they can be their place of work on time."
St Andrews is a small, farming community, just south of Pareora, and Scott said the review was particularly challenging for the area's rural families.
"They talk about barrier-free education - it's created quite a barrier for some families.
"When you hear stories of one parent having to give up a job, just so they can get their kids to school on time, it isn't fair."
Scott said the school ran a breakfast programme, that pupils bussing were now missing.
"St Andrews runs what they call the 'Breakfast Club' for some students, but the time they get to school is when they would usually be packing up, so they're later to get their day started and it's just created a lot of unnecessary hassle."
The school was part of the Aoraki Schools' Transport Network, which the ministry funded directly, but Mr Scott said the network's hands were tied, because it had a budget to stick to.
"It's all about saving money, I guess, but what they tried to save in the South Canterbury area, I think it's caused more hassle than it was worth."
School parents were alerted on Thursday night that parts of the inland route around Otaio would be amended, beginning Monday 17 February.
Blunt, crude tool
Rural Schools' Leadership Association president Andrew King of Bay of Plenty's Oropi School said rural schools nationwide reported concerns over the reviewed system, largely due to trip times, safety and logistics.
He said having a bus service was vital to rural schools and whānau, many of whom had to explore alternative transport options.
"[Rural families] don't have the after-school care facilities just down the road to drop kids off at; that's just not viable. They don't have care options on tap within a walking distance from their homes."
He said the review to the bus routes was "most definitely" a barrier to getting kids to school, that also put more financial burdens on families.
"There is a thing called a conveyance allowance that they can claim, instead of catching the bus, but the conveyance allowance is nowhere near the cost of petrol to get kids to and from school."
Many parents had raised the issue of road safety, as many new routes included gravel roads, and pick-ups and dropoff spots along 100kph highways.
He said the eight eligible pupils per bus rule was a "blunt, crude" tool and the fundamental problem with the review.
"There needs to be a less ruthless tool that's got a bit of flexibility around that number criteria. These numbers can change, based on farm workers and communities as well."
He said schools on the west coast of the South Island were particularly impacted by the review, due to the make-up of the population.
Primary responsibility with caregiver
King met with the ministry's school transport group manager James Meffan in Wellington on Thursday to discuss the concerns for rural schools.
Meffan said reviewing school bus routes was a routine and ongoing part of the Ministry's business, as numbers and locations of students changed constantly, and transport assistance was only provided to eligible students.
"We must also apply our policy consistently across New Zealand to ensure limited school transport funding is allocated fairly and efficiently.
Meffan said getting students to school safely involved many parties.
"When using a Ministry or public transport bus service, it is the caregiver's responsibility to ensure their children get to a bus stop safely and are supervised at the bus stop until the bus arrives, and the same in the evening," he said.
Bus operators were responsible for selecting safe bus stop locations, in accordance with NZTA guidelines.
"While the primary responsibility for transporting children to and from school rests with their caregivers, the Ministry of Education may be able to help where distance and lack of public transport may be a barrier for students attending their closest state or state-integrated school."
Meffan acknowledged the St Andrew's School bus route "has had an increase in travel time" and referred questions to the Aoraki Schools Transport Network, as the direct-resource network that organised and managed their own bus services through bulk ministry funding.
So what is next?
Federated Farmers was also meeting with the Minister of Education to raise its concerns over the cuts.
Spokesperson Toby Williams told Checkpoint the issue had been on their radar for about six months.
"While numbers have changed, or kids have gone off to university or changed schools to maybe go from primary to high school, it's meant that the number of students often on some of these buses now falls below that limit of eight."
He said attracting and keeping people in rural communities had become increasingly difficult, as living rurally had become more isolated.
Federated Farmers was looking at different solutions with the ministry, he said.
"What we want the Minister to do is actually ask the Ministry to go ahead and have a look at the different proposals and bring some ideas back about what it could look like without spending any more money."
"We know money is a challenge, so we need to be thinking how do we make the dollar go further? I think from a real perspective; we need to be looking at how do we cost share in this arrangement.
"We know that a lot of town buses are subsidised by the government. We still think that rural people should access it and the government have a subsidy on those buses."
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