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A Levack parent wants Rainbow District School Board trustees and administrators to experience what it’s like to be a student who buses from the school board’s outskirts to get to class each day.
Chantelle Gorham has invited the trustees and senior administrators to participate in a ‘school bus challenge’ by following a school bus as it picks up a student in Geneva Lake, north of Onaping, to Confederation Secondary School in Val Caron.
“I think people are under the assumption that the distance between towns is the distance to be travelled,” Gorham said. “If you drove straight through you could probably get from Geneva to Confederation in an hour. But unfortunately that’s not the reality.”
She said the trip takes closer to two hours on a school bus.
Some students currently travel from Geneva Lake to Chelmsford Valley District Composite School, which takes around 1.5 hours.
But the Rainbow board’s accommodation review has pegged the Chelmsford high school as one of a number of schools to be consolidated.
If the students from Geneva Lake had to go to Confederation Secondary School instead it would add 30 minutes to their commute each way.
“It would be like us asking the Rainbow School Board to conduct their business in Parry Sound every day,” Gorham said.
As of Friday she said three Rainbow board trustees, including Larry Killens, have accepted her challenge to follow the route Monday morning.
During a meeting with the school board in Chelmsford regarding the accommodation review on Oct. 20, Gorham challenged the board trustees and administrators to take part in the ‘school bus challenge.’
She said none of the administrators raised their hands.
The challenge will start in Geneva Lake at 6:30 a.m. Monday morning, and will end and Confederation Secondary school at 8:30 a.m.
“I guess it’s a little too early or a little too much, but they’re willing to let their students do that,” Gorham said, referring to the board’s senior administrators. “I want them to get a sense of what the children are subjected to.”
