Transportation fees are going up for Rocky View Schools (RVS) students who access school buses outside designated boundaries.
Currently, students who utilize transportation outside RVS boundaries pay $375 to offset costs.
Those costs will increase to $575 per student per annum for the 2015/16 school year, increasing to $775 in 2016 and $1,000 in 2017, which will cover all transportation costs.
“(This change) speaks to cost recovery because we are not getting any funding for these students,” said RVS Board Chair Colleen Munro.
RVS currently provides busing to students outside designated boundaries who live in areas which were annexed by the City of Calgary in 1989 and 1995 and transferred to the Calgary Board of Education.
Following annexation, former Alberta Minister of Education Gary Mar instructed RVS they must continue to transport registered students and their siblings from the area if parents requested they do so.
RVS initially received funding to transport these students, but as of 2012 Alberta Education only funds buses in the area that are transporting “grandfathered” students and their siblings.
Associate Superintendent of Business and Operations Darrell Couture said 98 non-grandfathered students in the area utilize these buses, primarily to Springbank and Bearspaw schools. The 2014/15 cost to RVS for the service is $100,000.
“An alternative is not to transport them,” Couture said. “But without these students, our schools in Springbank (and area) would not be operating up to their maximum potential.”
As of the 2016/17 school year, all grandfathered students and their siblings will have finished schooling in the RVS system, and Alberta Education funding will cease.
“This is a good motion,” said Trustee Todd Brand. “(It’s) a responsible and prudent approach to the situation at hand.”
The board approved the motion, with Trustees Sylvia Eggerer and Fiona Gilbert voting in opposition.
Letters sent
Munro said the board of trustees sent letters of congratulation to Premier-elect Rachel Notley and Rocky View County MLA-elects Cam Westhead, Angela Pitt, Leela Aheer and Nathan Cooper.
“We congratulated them on their wins,” Munro said. “We (also) outlined a bit of the situation that Rocky View Schools is in.”
Munro said the RVS Advocacy Committee would begin attempting to bring in newly elected officials for “face-to-face conversations” surrounding issues being tackled by board members.
