Regional transport manager Melissa Winters said children in Years 1 to 8 had to live more than 3.2km away to qualify for funding and at least eight children on the same side of the school had to meet the criteria for a bus to be viable. "They haven't been funded for what they have been receiving for quite a long time but the other schools in Tauranga have been helping," she said.
A recent change in the funding of urban school buses meant the rest of the city's schools no longer had the surplus to help fund the Whakamarama service, she said.
The nine children who were eligible for transport assistance would instead receive a daily transport allowance which could go to parents to help pay for petrol or to the school to help fund a van.
Ministry of Education head of education infrastructure service Kim Shannon said several Tauranga Schools had opted to directly receive their transport funding and organise their own buses. "These schools pooled their funding together to form the Tauranga Transport Network Group. Whakamarama School did not receive direct resource funding but the Tauranga group agreed to include them on one of their school bus routes. The Tauranga group has now decided to stop a number of its services, including the Whakamarama School bus."
It was not viable to run a school bus for Whakamarama School's nine eligible students, she said.
Principal Sue Waitai said the small school would struggle to afford to run its own bus or van.
"A lot of [the children] don't live far enough away to generate funding," she said.
Getting to school
• Nationally the Ministry of Education funds school buses for about 100,000 children in rural or semi-rural areas, at a cost of about $175m each year.
• About 600,000 students get to and from school safely each day using public transport, a lift from a parent, or by walking or cycling.
