Preparing for Safety and Success
At STEO, we are fantastically proud of all of the people involved in ensuring safe and dependable transportation for the students and families we serve. When you consider that those students number more than 30,000, travelling on nearly 800 vehicles over 120,000 kms each day – that’s no small achievement!
While the school boards, STEO, our local bus companies and an amazing team of school bus drivers work collaboratively to ensure a system that you can rely on, like anything involving our children, from childcare to health care, doing some contingency planning around your child’s transportation will only strengthen the foundation of that system.
Whether it be road conditions, inclement weather, driver absence, seasonal construction, or family- related circumstances – a certain number of delays and interruptions are to be anticipated as part of a system as complex and robust as this one.
For example, as a family with Kindergarten students, it is important to develop a back-up plan should your child’s guardian be unavailable to meet her or him at the bus stop. This might involve connecting with family, friends and/or neighbours to create an action plan to support the safety of our tiniest travelers in the case of an unforeseen emergency or personal delay.
Further, on days of inclement weather and/or questionable road conditions, the school boards we serve, in collaboration with STEO, are tasked with making a challenging decision around running or cancelling buses, with the safety of the entire student body in mind. When you consider the significant number of students and the vast geographic region in question, you can be sure that there will be days when some of our families may disagree with the final decision. On those days, your parental discretion and your transportation contingency plan are of utmost importance.
Schools remain open to receive students even when school transportation is cancelled. Conversely, if buses are operating but you feel that weather or road conditions are not conducive to travel, you may ultimately decide to keep your children home.
Your commitment to planning for contingencies in your child’s transportation is sincerely appreciated by the STEO team. For our part, STEO pledges to work diligently with all of our stakeholders to ensure that safety and efficiency remain the foundations of our service-model and that delays and interruptions remain the exception.
As always, yours in safety…
The STEO Team
Check in regularly at www.steo.ca for posted delays, cancellations and transportation updates. Sign up with STEO’s Parent Portal to receive alerts for transportation delays specific to your child’s route. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter.
