In an effort to keep transportation fees for parents as low as possible, Rocky View Schools (RVS) board of trustees voted May 1 to amend the attendance area for Bow Valley High School to create a savings of $199,000 for the transportation department.
“The cost savings totally makes sense. We can’t continue to cover transportation costs for these students,” said Trustee Fiona Gilbert, who made both motions to amend the Bow Valley attendance area.
The amended area will direct students living in the rural area south of the Bow River (exempting Sibbald Flats) to attend one of the schools in the Cochrane tri-school site, effective September 2014.
This decision will also effect rural bus service to Glenbow Elementary School, Mitford School and Bow Valley High School, as the service from this rural area will be discontinued either when the current 15 students requiring the bus service graduate from the school they are currently attending or by June 30, 2017, whichever is first.
Once the bus service is discontinued students and their siblings in this rural area can continue to be enrolled in Bow Valley High School but the transportation will become the responsibility of their parents.
Five out-of-area students bused from Bearspaw and Rocky Ridge (in Calgary) will also be losing bus service to the school effective June 30, 2016, with the board offering the remaining one student, who will not have graduated by this time, $4,000 in funding for “parent provided” transportation for the 2016 to 2017 school year.
“We know it’s very hard for a high school student to change high schools,” said Darrell Couture, associate superintendent of business and operations, “that’s why we recommend a slow withdrawal of service.”
The expanded attendance area that made it possible for these students to attend Bow Valley High School was approved in 2007 when the board looked at initiatives to attract students to the school, which had opened with a lower than anticipated student population.
However, the recent need for increased transportation funding and the low numbers of students using these bus services prompted the recommendation to amend the attendance area.
“A previous board made this change with good intentions but circumstances have changed,” said Board Chair Colleen Munro. “We have fewer and fewer dollars in our transportation budget.”
“This recommended option is balanced between providing funding for the few years to get most of the students through the school,” Gilbert said.
