I guess they had better reopen all them rural schools then. That`s why people moved out there in the first place.
It`s bad enough that I pay school tax on two properties and kids grown up and gone.
There should be a surplus in the budget not a deficit given the fact the student numbers are down and the tax base is the same.

In most provinces parents do pay to bus their children with is usually a yearly fee BC is one of the few that does not but its only a matter of time

This school board is anti rural. First they close all the rural schools busing kids huge distances from their homes, then now they want to bill for the bus ride. It’s discrimination against rural communities and at some point becomes a charter challenge around equal access to education. The native ruling in the Supreme Court yesterday should be a wake up call when these trustees continue to cut the access to education for rural students.

Most people that live in rural areas also work rural, therefor paying more than their fair share of taxes in resource royalties and gas taxes, as well as consumption taxes for things like equipment.

Obviously this is a school board that likes to talk that they are rural friendly as they twist it in the back a little further for financial efficiencies that can cover a little more for staff pay raises at HQ.

wait… this isn’t in place already? huh, Kamloops instituted this like 15 years ago, and I thought they were behind the times…

I swear the heads of school district past must of smoked too much of something back in the day. Close rural schools and now the district wants to charge money to bus kids from the outskirts. It would be cheaper to open some rural schools for the long run.

They should charge $200 to the crazy soccer moms who have to aggressively wedge their car in and insist on dropping their child off two inches from the door. :P

my thought is that if they are going to Charge rider fees… that what ever the dollar value that they are trying to recoupe from bussing should be divided equally amongst every student in SD 57. instead of $100.00 to rural students. A once a year travel subsidy fee that levels the participation field.

Some kids are on the bus for over an hour for a 10-15 minute commute. Combine that with the fee and parents will just drive their kids. Their $263,000 projected income from fees will drop to half that. The drop in fuel prices should help them save some money this year.

I encourage the Board to do what they seem to know is right and dismiss the idea of charging children a fee to get to school.
The fact that other areas have such a fee does not make it right; it is a potential impediment to equal access to education. That is something we can not allow in PG.
As other commenters have noted, many of these students have been forced onto the buses after their schools have been closed and to charge them for the privilege now would be an insult!
In Mackenzie the majority of the elementary school population is transported by bus to a now overcrowded school ever since our second elementary school was closed. This could also affect property values in the portion of the town that was served by the closed school. If fees are instituted for transportation, then any family looking to buy a home in that area will have to factor the lack of a school AND the cost of getting their children to school into their calculation of what a home in that area is worth.

What next, a New Class Room Fee ,this Extra Billing never ends, tax the Sick for Parking at the Hospital on and on it goes . What are you doing with all the Money you saved by closing the Rural Schools , in any Case wont affect us, no one in School anymore . Why don’t you park all the Buses and save plenty, I like to see the Reaction !

Is it any wonder that the birth rate has fallen so low ? Just keep building a higher paywall . What a hell of a way to treat the kids . What a hell of a way to treat families . Eduction industrial complex feeding frenzy .

My kids can no longer go to a school 2 doors down and now must take the bus or be driven to school. Add a fee and we will opt to drive, going towards town anyway just a few minutes earlier.

What don’t the trustees understand about “free public education”? I understand that money is tight, but charging fees for children to go to school shouldn’t even be on the table.

I love this system. Shoot the messenger. If the province funded the district properly, they wouldn’t need to do it. Don’t blame the trustees, they’re trying to fit the square peg the province gave them into the round hole we want filled.

On the flip side, I chose to live in a rural area. In exchange, I got to pay about 25% of the property tax/school tax, as you city dwellers do. My tax levy on $300,000 is $900.00. I think in the city it’s closer to $3,000.00 plus water, plus garbage plus???. Is $300.00 a year so much to have my kids driven to school so I can enjoy cleaner air, larger lot size, and much lower taxes?

Full disclosure, I no longer have a child in school.

People need to wake up and get their head out of the sand. What is needed is to get Christy and her clowns voted out. All this government wants to do is starve education money and charge user fees for anything they can think of. If the government is so damn hard up then why are we going ahead with site C and more expensive bridges in the Vancouver area. It’s time to start listening to the people and use the funds to support things that really matter.

I rode the bus to school back in the day. My parents payed taxes that payed for it. Of course back then there weren’t as many empire builders running everything in our province like there are today. They have totally destroyed pretty much everything they get their greedy hands on. Not their money and no real conscience when wasting it.

Ski51. I take your point, but as an argument against the archaic practice of funding schools via property taxes.

Just wondering whos going to foot the bill on any refugees that will be bused to school???

They run a 14 million dollar surplus, and they want to collect bus fares.

Will those on reserves pay the fee?

The high cost of education can be attributed to wages and benefits for teachers, and administration. Its just that simple.

Any money saved by these hair brained ideas will spent on wages and benefits.

The idea makes about as much sense as building all the schools in rural areas and busing the city students to the rural schools. The idea is absurd, but hey, think of all the money you would make by charging a fee for the bussing,.

I agree with this move. Although its unfortunate to pass the cost down to families, the reality of the matter is that they chose to live in a rural area. There are pros and cons of doing so, and accessibility is always a major con. The tax payer shouldn’t be on the hook because you reside far from a school. I don’t get reimbursed for my gas to work.

pgjohn–Many people work in the rural areas and that is why they are there. There were also many schools in the rural area at one time and are now closed.

“pgjohn–Many people work in the rural areas and that is why they are there. There were also many schools in the rural area at one time and are now closed. ”

Closed because of capacity issues. Even the Vancouver school board have recently decided to close 15 schools because of low enrollment. Demographic shifts happen, and you can’t continue to spend money because it was done that way before.

I live in town and the kids in my neighbourhood are bussed. Parents bought here when there was a school zoned in to be built and then that was scrapped (for obvious reasons). Doesn’t matter to me as my kids don’t go to public school, but just saying that not all bussed kids live out in the boonies with lower taxes. I don’t know if we are the only in town area like this. I’d be interested to know.

pgjohn– The school district made the choice to close schools and decided it would be less costly to bus the children so I say now follow through with your commitment.

SD #57:
If you continue down this road, then more parents will home school.
As more parents home school, fewer students attend your classes.
Fewer students, less need for teachers.
Less need for teachers, fewer teaching position to pay for your degree in education.

Stop the stupidity and reopen or open rural schools.

If you want to be fair and realize economies of scale, then open your mega schools on the perimeter (that means around the outside) of the urban area to be actually fair to the outlying regions.

You may be educated, but you are not demonstrating being smart or intelligent.

I live in city limits and pay full taxes. The school closing is a financial calculation by the school board – ie cheaper to bus the kids then keep the school open. Then a few years later make a financial decision to charge for busing. But in my case we drive in every day from our suburban semi rural area so they will lose 2 riders and maybe now the ridership will be too small to justify a bus for the other kids in the area, you never know how people think. Just always be prepared to dig out your wallet.

Why do we pay lower Taxes living in the Sticks ? We get no Services , no Water , no Sewer , no Fire Protection and what we do get we pay for it, like getting our Roads plowed and School Taxes, so think about it , we should be paying more for getting nothing!

We are already doing this since our son’s school burned down and moved to lower College Heights. $100 per month, they pick him up and drop off were the old school was and various other locations for other students. I could see it being a bit of a hardship for families with more than one child or with low incomes though.

I have to agree with pgjohn. I too would like to live outside of the city and not pay city taxes. So while I sympathize for those having to pay for busing, somewhere you made a choice to have the rural lifestyle, whether it be to be closer to work or to be a farmer or whatever?

Outwest- I get no city services, no water, no sewer but I pay the same rate as others within city limits

Sprcecapital- not all children who are bused live outside city limits

The same people who think that charging students to bus to Prince George is a good idea, would scream bloody murder if you told them that it would be much cheaper for students to attend University in Vancouver, or Victoria, or Kelowna, or Kamloops.

The fact of the matter is we spend hundreds of millions of dollars for the University on the hill, and get very little in return for money spent. Perhaps we should close all the campuses in the interior and have these students attend Prince George, or close the University (which would be a huge savings) and have students attend other Universities.

Seems we don’t have a problem funding a University that is constantly losing money, but we pretend that we are fiscally responsible when it comes to bussing rural students.

While we need to keep an eye on costs for education, we also need to ensure that we look after all citizens fairly, not just those who happen to live in Prince George. If in fact we are going to charge for bussing then it should be paid for by all residents in the area, not just those who live in rural areas.

What about those that choose the rural lifestyle to get out of the eye burning nose hair burning green stench of death that hangs in this valley. It is worse than it ever has been.

Sure, I guess I will pay $100…oh wait I guess $200 a year if I don’t have to drive them to the bus stop….since you know I get the car warmed up and drive to the bus stop because there is no safe way for them to get there on their own. I wait for the bus, by the time I get home I could have driven them to school and been back at the same time. I don’t own a skidoo, which would make it much easier when the roads haven’t been plowed. I actually already drive them to school, but they take the bus home. Honestly, to me it is doable if they pick them up at a safer location that I don’t have to drive to -Which is not out of the way much at all. I do NOT think that a family should pay more for more kids. So flat $100 per household. The company that runs the buses Diversified in this case. Scraps the Seniority BS and put the bus drivers that live in the areas on those routes. THAT would save a lot of costs right there. I am for Unions, however sometimes it is not logical…same goes for teachers, seriously! That is one thing about unions that pisses me off. I get that you have to ask for more to get less, but it can get a little out of hand too, with all your “needs” vs simple logic. Another thing re -evaluate your catchment areas! For heavens sake you overlap catchments and send double the buses out over top of each other. We just ask for a little common sense on the spending. If there is a way around not having to charge the parents, because they do already pay for an awful lot that would be best, try to find more savings elsewhere. You did say it would be cheaper to bus than keep their schools.