YOUR COMMUNITY NEWSPAPER |JULY 24 | No.261
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The 307 School bus may stop transporting Long Bay College students from 2 August.
307 School Bus Service To Stop
L
ocal families whose children catch the 307 school bus to Long Bay College, may need to find an alternative means of transport from 2 August onwards. Until now, the 307 bus service has been funded by the Ministry of Education with the service provided by Ritchies Transport as the MOE's contractor. The bus has carried students in the Coatesville area to Northcross Intermediate and Long Bay College for a number of years. However, in June, Ritchies communicated to the parents of Long Bay College students taking the bus that the service would end on 5 July after the Ministry of Education had withdrawn funding. Gavin McLeod, Manager of Ritchies Transport's Albany depot said in a letter to school families affected that, "The Ministry of Education had removed funding for the service and unfortunately the service is not viable for Ritchies without their support." A second letter sent to parents extended that deadline until 2 August.
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Coatesville local Ben Wolmarans was one of the parents who received the letter and immediately tried to find out more by writing to Minister of Education, Erica Stanford. Ben also contacted The Chronicle "Without the 307 bus service, working families will need to drop off children at school and pick them up afterwards because there is no suitable public transport available as an alternative," he says. However, according to the Ministry, the decision to stop funding the 307 service was based on a lack of student eligibility criteria. Their spokesman on the matter, Scott Evans, Leader (Hautū) Infrastructure and Digital says,"One of the eligibility criteria for Ministryfunded transport assistance is that students must be enrolled at their closest state or state-integrated school. "Route D020307 is a Ministry school bus service for eligible Northcross Intermediate School students travelling from Coatesville. The
operator of this service is using extra capacity on this service to also transport ineligible students from Coatesville to Long Bay College and is charging these students a fare. Long Bay College students are ineligible for school transport assistance as they are not attending their closest school," he says. The Chronicle understands that the Ministry began transporting the seven eligible Northcross students who used the 307 service on a different bus in May. So Long Bay College and local families of students who take the bus, now have less than a month to find an alternative solution. One option is for the school to keep the service running by finding a way to fund it, otherwise after 2 August, school drop-offs and pick-ups will again become part of the work day for parents. VJ
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