Compassion or convenience.
The Living Sky School Board is seeing some members moving away from black and white decisions when it comes to requests for bus route changes. But in one of the most recent requests, black and white continued to win out.
A tie vote at the board's Sept. 11 meeting resulted in the loss of a motion to grant a request made by a family who lives between Luseland and Unity to have the Luseland bus pick their children up.
Amber and Jody Sperle live in the Unity school catchment area, however their community and family ties are with Luseland, and Amber works in Kerrobert. They asked that the bus drive an extra two miles to their farm rather than having them drive to the nearest "safe haven," a neighbour's farm, to meet the bus to Luseland.
They said as their children grew older it would be more difficult to get them to Luseland, and they do not support the "safe haven" concept, saying it is not, in fact, safe for children during winter months, nor fair to the "safe haven" family. They added it could even come to Amber having to give up her job as a nurse at Kerrobert.
Four members of the board supported the request, saying the Sperles had put forward a strong case for compassion, including Richard Hiebert, who made a motion to grant the request.
Board member Glenn Wouters said the board has almost always denied such requests so as to not set precedents that would see a flood of requests. He has agreed with that in the past, he said, but now he says, since the Education Act does allow for parents to appeal busing decisions, they should be considered on an individual basis. He said the Sperles had made a strong case for compassion, and he was satisfied changing the bus route would not impact the other students riding the bus.
Bob Foreman agreed, as did Jack Snell, who added it's time someone showed farm families some extra consideration.
Chair Ken Arsenault and board members Kim Gartner, Ron Kowalchuk and Ronna Pethick held firm to their belief that to grant the request would open a door to a flood of similar requests that, if allowed, would create havoc within the division's transportation division.
Gartner said the request had more to do with convenience than compassion. The board wasn't saying the family couldn't send their kids to Luseland, just that they would have to be responsible for transporting them there.
Arsenault referred to board policy that transportation of students out of attendance areas is to be the responsibility of the family unless programming needs cannot be met at the school within the students' attendance area. He was satisfied that was not the case.
Transportation manager Colin Westgard pointed out that while granting the request would mean the Sperle children would be first on and last off, not affecting pickup times for the other children on the bus, but that is only because of where the current bus driver lives. That could change, he said.
Missing from the meeting, and therefore the vote, were board members Garth Link and Todd Miller.
