Hawke’s Bay mother slams rural school bus route cancellations, says kids face long days

• Claudia Heaps criticises the termination of Clive’s school bus routes, calling it “short-sighted” and “insane”.
• Heaps’ children will use public transport, leaving at 7am and returning after 5pm.
• Labour’s Jan Tinetti calls the route terminations “totally unacceptable” and fears for students’ learning capabilities.

A Hawke’s Bay mother says her children will have to leave for school at 7am and won’t return home until after 5pm when they will be forced to use public transport after the area’s school bus routes are cut in 2025.

Claudia Heaps, from Clive, is calling the cancellations “short-sighted”, especially given the coalition Government’s passion for school attendance.

“David Seymour posted on his Facebook page [on Thursday] saying that attendance is up to 53% this term, as opposed to 46% last term. He’s obsessed with attendance rates and then in the same breath they’re going to cancel school transport.”

So far this year, 290 routes have been reviewed with 39 either cancelled or set to be. The Ministry of Education says this is because fewer than eight eligible students are using the services or students do not qualify for school transport assistance.

To be eligible for a funded school bus, students must attend their closest state or state-integrated school. Year 1 to 8 students must live more than 3.2 kilometres from their school, while high school students must live at least 4.8km away, and public transport cannot be a viable option.

Heaps said Clive’s school bus routes were to be axed because the ministry said students had public transport available. Heaps disagrees.

“Where I’m trying to argue it with them is that it says you have to be picked up within one hour of leave of school finishing – so there has to be a bus before 4pm. But the first bus home from Havelock to Clive is at 4.35pm via Hastings and then to Clive – so the kids will get home at 5pm.

“That’s the one that they’re saying is a viable option. That still falls outside of their criteria, because the criteria is that you have to be picked up within an hour and there can be no more than one bus change.

“I sent them the email saying ‘this doesn’t work’. That’s 90 minutes after school, so we’re falling outside of your own criteria. But they quoted a bus that leaves Havelock before 4pm that takes them to Hastings, where they then wait for that very bus that leaves Havelock at 4.35, picks them up in Hastings at 4.43 and then takes them back to Clive before 5pm. So they’re finding loopholes.”

Education Minister Erica Stanford said in a statement to Hawke’s Bay Today that she instructed her officials earlier in the year to investigate opportunities to improve the efficiency, accessibility and flexibility of school transport and the previous Government had paused reviews, leaving a backlog.

“The ministry’s current reviews of bus routes are part of business as usual. No policy settings or eligibility criteria have changed. This service is demand-driven – meaning if you’re eligible for transport, the ministry provides support.

“The Government is not terminating rural school bus routes. This is entirely an operational matter for the Ministry of Education.”

Rhona Hewitt, the ministry’s acting group manager of school transport, said in a statement that the primary responsibility for transporting children to and from school rested with their caregivers. The ministry might be able to help where distance and lack of public transport might be a barrier to students attending their closest state or state-integrated school.

“Our recent reviews of the school bus services that travel from Clive to Napier and from Clive to Havelock North found that students who live in Clive, who are currently using our services, are ineligible for school transport assistance as either there is public transport available or they are not attending their closest school,” she said.

“The ministry is the school transport provider of last resort and does not provide a duplicate service where public transport is available.

“We acknowledge that students who attend schools in Havelock North may have to wait for up to an hour after school for the next public transport service to transport them home. Any concerns that caregivers have about their public transport network, or suggestions for improvements, should be directed to their local regional council.”

Heaps says there’s no “genuine care or empathy” from either the ministry or the Government.

“If you challenge them on it, the minister will say it’s an operational issue and the operational staff will say it’s a ministerial issue.

“It’s just insane.”

Labour education spokeswoman Jan Tinetti, who was called a “stupid b***h” by Stanford in Parliament on Thursday while debating the bus cancellations, believes the route terminations in Clive are “totally unacceptable” and the Government is looking at the situation through an “urban lens”.

“There’s a whole lot of implications there, you’re putting kids at risk and that just doesn’t seem right to me at all,” Tinetti said.

“While it’s really good that the urban areas have [public transport] as solutions, those are not solutions in rural areas and I’m really concerned about that.”

Tinetti, a former school principal, is worried that the extra hours added to pupils’ days will impact their learning capabilities.

“Think about ourselves when we have long days and how effective we are at the end of those days. We’re just not, and that’s what’s going to happen to these young people.

“Not only will they have their time at school but then they’re not going to get home to do all those extracurricular activities. It’s really going to impact on them in a great, great way, and I’m so concerned. I just don’t understand why that would be an acceptable answer.”

Jack Riddell is a multimedia journalist with Hawke’s Bay Today and spent the last 15 years working in radio and media in Auckland, London, Berlin and Napier. He reports on all stories relevant to residents of the region, along with pieces on art, music and culture.