A Sunshine Coast mom took to social media last week, saying her young son was “lost” by School District No. 46 (SD46) and the school bus company Thirdwave.
The kindergarten student boarded the wrong bus after school and ended up at Chatelech Secondary, but he was later transferred to a different school bus and taken back home.
SD46 Board Chair Betty Baxter said she heard about the issue shortly after it was raised online, but not before staff had responded to the situation.
“We want the public to know that the principal was notifying the superintendent and the superintendent was notifying the board before we started being notified by the public,” Baxter said at the Nov. 10 SD46 board meeting.
“So it’s good for us to be able to say, particularly in the role of board chair, ‘I’ve already spoken to the superintendent and he has in turn spoken to the family.’”
Superintendent of schools Patrick Bocking said that safety of students is the number one priority of SD46 and that staff reacted appropriately.
“As soon as we knew there was a child who wasn’t on a bus that we expected him to be on, we were working very hard to contact the bus company and making sure that communication happened,” Bocking said.
“Obviously we feel deeply for parents whose child doesn’t show up when they expect them to, so the principal was communicating with the parent very quickly, making sure that she was on it and working to find out what the issue was.”
He added that the child was supervised at all times by Thirdwave staff who transferred him from one bus to another to get back home.
“We have spoken to the parents and made sure that they understand our deep concerns for their child’s safety and that we’re reviewing all of our practices in that regard to ensure that they’re properly addressing any potential for that kind of issue to happen again,” Bocking said.
