Bus company's school transport criteria dismays some parents

Some Dannevirke and area parents are struggling to understand eligibility rules for school children using buses. Photo / Leanne Warr

A decision made last year for some children taking buses to school has raised the ire of a number of Tararua parents.

Go Bus, the company which has the contract for the Tararua, informed parents that the school buses would no longer be taking ineligible students to schools as of this year.

Under Ministry of Education criteria, students were able to get transport assistance if they attended the closest state or state-integrated school, lived at least 3.2km from their school if they were primary and at least 4.8km if they were secondary and had no public transport option.

Up until late last term, Go Bus had been allowing Tararua students who were ineligible to still take the bus, as long as they paid a fare.

Go Bus' decision to stop that had upset a few parents who had been told of it only a few weeks before the end of the school year, which left them little time to make alternative arrangements or re-enrol their children in new schools for the new term.

James Meffan, group manager for school transport with the ministry said that they were aware some transport operators had only recently made the decision not to take ineligible students from this year.

But some Dannevirke parents felt the rules were ridiculous saying the criteria could mean one child was able to take the school bus to secondary school, but their primary school age child was not able to because there was a primary school within the minimum distance.

Dannevirke High School is the closest secular secondary school for all those from Dannevirke to Norsewood and surrounding communities.

Parents in the Dannevirke area had tried to talk to Go Bus about it but had been told it was a ministry decision.

Russell Turnbull from Go Bus said he sympathised with the situation.

He said Go Bus was contracted to provide services to eligible children only.

"That means we have to follow the route the ministry tells us and they tell us how many students we have to pick up. We provide a bus with the right size to do that job."

While the ministry set the policies and regulations, Meffan said it was still up to the company to decide whether to take ineligible students.

However, he added the ministry could not require companies to take ineligible students.

Turnbull said Go Bus couldn't be the judges of who could jump in, even if a parent was willing to pay for their children to use the bus.

"Someone's going to say 'well, how come that person could get on and that person couldn't?'.

"It's something we just do not want to go into."

He said they were contracted for a certain size of bus and couldn't just magic up a bigger bus to cater for those students.

"If there's an argument over eligibility then the ministry needs to make that call. If they want us to put on a bigger bus, we can, but then there would have to be a discussion with the ministry about the price of the bus."

He added eligibility of students was a national issue and Dannevirke was no different than anywhere else.

It was believed local schools had now made an arrangement so that those children who were ineligible but had been catching the bus last year could still do so.

However, any new students would not be allowed to, which also included siblings of those students who were not yet attending school.

Kieran McAnulty has been trying to help resolve the situation with Go Bus. Photo / NZME

Wairarapa MP Kieran McAnulty said eligibility was an issue that had been around for a while and he was keen to try to get it resolved.

He said he understood the parents' perspective.

"I understand the rationale around eligibility. There needs to be some criteria in place but these things should never be rigid to the extent where they don't make sense in situations like this. And I would expect that there would be some flexibility."

He had tried to contact someone at Go Bus locally, but had not had any reply so had escalated it.

"Normally in this situation we'd try and resolve it locally but if Go Bus isn't getting back to us then I have no choice but to raise it with the minister of education."

The first priority was dealing with the problem of the routes before the eligibility could be tackled.

McAnulty said it might take some time to put forward a case to get the rules adjusted but he invited any parent with these concerns to contact him so he could follow it up.