Kids got a short reprieve from school last week after bitterly-cold temperatures forced the Pembina Hills school division to cancel bus service.
More than 3,000 students were left without a ride in the Barrhead and Westlock areas last Tuesday and Wednesday as temperatures dipped below -40 C. In cases of extreme weather, the division typically waits until morning to decide the fate of the bus service for that day, but were able to make the call the nights before.
“Usually we make it in the morning and then the parents have to go out and find babysitters and get their kids to town and it doesn’t give them a lot of time,” said Pembina Hills’ director of transportation Tracy Tyreman.
“It was an easy choice because every radio station and Environment Canada did predict that it was going to be cold weather along with the windchill.”
Buses stop rolling when temperatures drop below -40 C — temperatures on Tuesday hit a low of -44 C.
The decision to stop service on Wednesday, Jan. 18 was also made the day prior, as Environment Canada predicted overnight temperatures between -40 C and -50 C.
As soon as the decision is made bus drivers are notified, who then contact parents of children on their routes. A notice is also displayed on the schoool division’s website, www.phrd.ab.ca.
Tyreman said it is typical to have two or three days each year where buses don’t operate due to weather conditions and he said it doesn’t have a huge impact on schools, since they can always make up the time.
“They don’t worry about this because they know they can always make it up, but if it goes beyond the three days, then it gets a little tricky,” he said.
“We really don’t want to close down the buses unless we feel we really, really have to.”
Many area schools had a lot of missing students as a result of the bus closures, but said it was business as usual.
“It’s like any other snow day,” said Linda Kallal at Westlock Elementary School. “We have some students here and others are not.”
St. Mary School principal Audrey MacDonald said although some classes were reduced to just one student, the school was making the best of the situation.
“We don’t have any classes that have nobody in them, but we’ve got various small numbers,” she said. “It’s a good chance for the students that are here to get one-on-one attention.”
She said she is confident that many students were still working on schoolwork, whether they were in school or at home, due to looming diploma exams.
Students who did attend were kept inside for recess to ensure they were not exposed to the elements.
Other factors that can contribute to a stoppage of bus operations are blizzard conditions, high accumulation of snow and blowing snow, Tyreman said.
In these conditions, he said a group of six people head out onto the roads at 4 a.m. to check road conditions and report back to him with their findings. He said blowing snow is of most concern, as it impacts the visibility of drivers.
Tyreman said the division is looking into installing GPS devices in its buses, which would make it easier for the division to relay information of closures to parents.
He said these could come as early as this summer and would transmit information virtually instantly.
“(People could) go on the website and it would say buses closed due to weather conditions or mechanical breakdown and it will even show you when the bus is late,” he said.
“We are looking at that for this year, which will really, really help parents and ourselves.”
