Due to budget cuts in the Surrey School District, student transportation services will be cut by more than half, leaving some students desperate to find a way to get to class.
The district announces in its budget for the coming school year that it will cut funding for student transportation from $7.5 million to $3 million.
The district says it does not have enough money to keep up with inflation and the rising population.
Nicole Berg said it is not safe for her son Marcus, who needs assistance, to be near traffic. She said it is a big help that a bus takes him to Lord Tweedsmuir Secondary School every day.
“I spent the whole summer trying to find a replacement,” she said. “Pick him up in the middle of the day is a big challenge.”
Marcus is in 11th grade and needs help getting to school. For several years, the school bus helped him arrive safely.
Now Berg and a group of parents are calling on the Ministry of Education to finance the gap in bus transport.
Marcus Berg is starting 11th grade this school year. (Nicole Berg)
In an emailed statement to CBC News, Rachna Singh, British Columbia’s minister of education and child care, said it is the responsibility of education boards and school districts to distribute the funds they receive.
“While the ministry provides funds to public school districts to purchase buses, the decision to provide transportation to students is made by school districts at the local level,” Singh said.
Singh said the ministry has steadily increased operating funding for school boards since 2017 and is awarding over $1 billion in operating and special grants to Surrey this school year.
Surrey School District Trustee Terry Allen said the money is still not enough to offset inflation and the district’s rapidly growing student population.
“We know the impact this will have on some families. We know it will be a burden on some families, but we have to make these decisions because our job is to balance the budget,” Allen said.
Surrey School District Trustee Terry Allen says the district is not receiving enough funding to offset inflation and handle the rapid increase in student enrollment. (CBC News)
The Surrey school district is the largest in British Columbia, with more than 82,000 students, and Allen said thousands more are expected to enroll next school year.
Combined with inflation, the district no longer has enough money to provide all the services it previously did, he said.
“(Transportation) is a peripheral issue,” he said. “When you make these kinds of cuts, the intention is always to keep the cuts as far away from the classroom as possible.”
Some students lose their bus service
Now some parents are desperately trying to find a way to get their children to school.
Dildeep Khaira, who has two children who also need support, said the school bus service helped them overcome their fear of being dropped off at a school in Surrey. But in June, Khaira learned they were no longer eligible.
Khaira said she received an email this summer saying her children did not meet the criteria.
“One thing that helped us has been taken away from us,” Khaira said. “There is no appeal. There is no explanation.”
Berg said it’s not always possible to leave work to pick up her son, and it’s difficult to hire someone to pick him up in the middle of the day. She called on the province to increase funding for the school board to fill that gap.
“The responsibility clearly lies with the ministry. I believe they have underfunded the Surrey school district and now they need to catch up,” she said.
