The province is introducing mandatory registration for students in the K-12 system to avail of school busing.

Minister of Transportation Barry Petten says mandatory registration will allow the department to plan bus routes and gauge capacity based on precise information.

All school bus routes, including secondary approved stops at child care centres, will be finalized before the start of the school year.

The minister says no student will lose a seat, and families will no longer have to spend the first weeks of the school season waiting for route confirmation.

“Before we got rid of the 1.6 km busing (rule), they had courtesy seats to fill the gap. You might get approved in October” says Petten. “It created an awful lot of stress.”
He says many parents were also left struggling trying to find a way to have their children dropped off at their daycare after school, which meant some children were unable to access childcare.

The new registration system will be phased in over three years starting this September for the first 17 schools.