Despite talk of interim routes and working through solutions, Queenstown Primary School (QPS) principal Fiona Cavanagh feared the die had been cast, and 150 of her pupils would be some of the worst-affected.
The Ministry of Education axed one route and redesigned seven services, along with the interim services, but just two of those buses take pupils to QPS, either from Arthurs Point or Mt Creighton, Closeburn or Ben Lomond.
While St Joseph’s and KingsView pupils who live in Lake Hayes Estate and Lower Shotover have another interim service option, that bus is not available for QPS, something Ms Cavanagh labelled ‘‘ridiculous’’.
For children forced on to public transport, she said staff would likely have to take turns to collect the pupils from Stanley St bus stops in the mornings, and make sure they get back on a bus at the end of the day.
She was concerned about children’s attendance being impacted if buses were late or full, and implications of public buses not turning up at the end of the day.
‘‘Where does that leave us?
‘‘You can’t just leave them on the side of the road, really, can you?’’
‘‘I think parents may be prepared to pay [for] the school bus service, if it was a school bus service as we know it.’’
The Ministry of Education said it would not disclose the information, citing commercial sensitivity because the service is provided by a single operator.
Mr Glover was also concerned about safety issues for pupils, and the impact on the public bus services.
‘‘If we’re trying to get people to change behaviour and ... use buses for their normal day-to-day life, ramming them to capacity with school kids that don’t really want to be on that bus is probably the biggest retrograde step that we could take,’’ he said.
‘‘From my perspective [the school bus changes don’t] work for a whole heap of reasons.
‘‘We’re not the budget-holder, we’re not the decision-maker, but I think we’ve got a really strong role in advocating and trying to ask the questions and seeing if we can get some better solutions and outcomes.
‘‘There’s a wider conversation and we need our local advocates to be talking to government ... we just actually want something that works for us ... right here, right now.’’
Meanwhile, former mayor Jim Boult was issuing a call to arms for the community over impending changes to school bus routes.
‘‘Queenstown, en masse, should be screaming, loudly about this,’’ he said.
‘‘Write to your local politician, write to central government politicians ... get noisy.’’
The interim changes — which take effect from the beginning of next term — have been signalled by the Ministry of Education since 2017.
The government department’s stance is if public transport is available, or a student is not attending their closest school, they are ineligible for ministry-funded school bus transport.
Ministry school transport group manager James Meffan said 11 ‘‘interim’’ bus services would be in place from next term for students ineligible for a ministry school bus.
‘‘We are continuing to work [with] the [Otago Regional Council] on a longer-term, council-delivered sustainable solution for these students and expect to provide an update over the coming months.’’
Regional council regional planning and transport general manager Anita Dawe said the council was ‘‘actively working to find a solution, within a constrained funding environment’’.
‘‘We understand some interim [MoE] bus services will be available from the start of term 2 that will address some of the gaps created.’’
