A First Student bus (photo by Liam Verster)

By Liam Verster

Ten Bus Drivers in Isolation

School bus service reductions from COVID won’t be long-term: First Student

Mar 31, 2021 | 9:11 AM

A shortage of local bus drivers due to COVID-19 isolations has led to the cancellation of one route for the entire week, but First Student isn’t too concerned about long term reductions in services.

Currently 10 drivers are in isolation, and the 218 bus that serves the Grande Prairie Catholic School Division hasn’t been running this week.

First Student has had a few bus drivers test positive for COVID-19 and require isolating in the past year, but this is the first time that so many drivers were infected that a bus route had to be cancelled.

Despite the current situation, Timothy Nesbitt, the Location Manager for First Student in the Grande Prairie area, says with it being spring break next week, it should give the drivers enough time to recover, and operations should be able to fully resume when kids go back to class.

Nesbitt adds First Student has been lucky because their staff levels are the highest they’ve been in the past several years, and there are currently three new drivers undergoing training.

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“I’m really hoping that if we can get everyone back to work when we’re back from spring break and add in a handful more employees, we should be in a pretty optimal space to make a difference. But one thing that we’ve learned is you can go into a week with one plan, and by the time the week comes to a close you’ve had to re-write that plan several times.”

Nesbitt says the infections may have come from community transmission, but also might be from infected students on board a bus.

He asks families to take some time and help bring the numbers down so the buses can be a safe space when class resumes.

“Spring break is a good time to reset and enjoy time with you family and take a break, but please do it safely. We can use it as an opportunity to reset all of our situations and go into the last stint of the school year from a strong perspective, or we can set ourselves up to fail by ignoring the consequences of the pandemic.”

The school divisions require families to monitor their children and complete the daily COVID-19 symptom checklist, and asks that people continue to follow those steps before sending their kids to school on the bus.

He adds he can’t predict what will happen if a third wave of COVID-19 hits Grande Prairie, but does say they will do what they can to continue to serve the students as best as possible and make adjustments to the service as needed.