Parents of children at Clinton School, in South Otago, yesterday expressed outrage over changes to the Ministry of Education-funded rural bus route that could leave primary school children with a long and dangerous walk to school.
At least four parents have been informed their children on the Wairuna bus route would not be picked up from their rural homes, after the ministry's contractor Ritchie Bus Services stopped home pickups that were outside the ministry's official bus route.
Concerned parent Lisa Anderson said her children, aged 7 and 9, were usually picked up by the school bus from home, but on Tuesday she was told by Clinton School that the children would not be picked up from their home address the next day.
Since then, she said the school had managed to get an extension from the ministry for a bus to pick the children up from State Highway 1 more than 1km away from the family home, rather than the nearest ministry-funded stop 2.6km away.
For the past three days, Mrs Anderson had driven the children to the pick up point, but she said it would not be possible for her to drive the children every day. At least four other families had also been told their children had to walk to the new location, she said.
"These roads are busy rural roads, with farm trucks, stock trucks and milk tankers on them. We are rural families who work at home and can't drop everything to drive to the new stop twice a day."
But while children were being told to walk in icy conditions, Mrs Anderson said she had been told that the Ritchies Bus area manager was away on holiday and could not confirm if a further extension could be put in place to pick the children up from home, until he returned from holiday on Monday. The families were also told it was not possible for them to pay for the bus run to be extended.
Mrs Anderson has now launched a campaign to reinstate the original Wairuna bus run, and encouraged fellow parents to write to local MP Bill English to protest the "grossly unfair" situation.
No-one at Ritchies' Gore depot was available for comment yesterday, but the company's Oamaru depot confirmed that no routes in North Otago had changed. The Ministry of Education was unable to provide comment to the Otago Daily Times before going to press.
