Snowstorm Causes Prolonged Bus Cancellations in Mountain View School Division

No one was happier than Stephen Jaddock when he learned the morning of Jan. 18 that all buses in Mountain View School Division were running.

For the previous six school days, the MVSD superintendent/CEO was dealing with the after effects of a snow storm which, for the most part, stalled the division’s transportation program from Jan. 10 to 18. Buses were back on the road in Winnipegosis and Ethelbert, Jan. 17.

“Even in the transportation department, they’ve been hard pressed to remember if we went that many school days in a row. When you look at it, that’s a week plus a day of school. And having them spread out is one thing, but when they come at the heels of each other it’s just a cumulative effect,” Jaddock said, adding such a long stretch without bus students in class puts a strain on the entire system.

“Usually, if you have one day or even two days where you can’t get students in, we could bounce back from that, we could work around it, get extra time on the days that the kids are in. But it’s just when there was that many in a row we just can’t make it up. It’s just gone.”

In particular, the Provincial Grade 12 English Language Arts exam was supposed to have been written during that time.

Fortunately, Jaddock said, the province has contingencies for such situations and students will be able to write a makeup exam in the future.

Throughout the extended cancellation parents were understanding with the division not receiving any significant calls or complaints. In fact, most of the concern expressed came from staff, Jaddock said.

“Our principals worried about students not having the contact time,” he said.

To help mitigate those effects, the division has taken a lesson learned during the COVID pandemic and is encouraging students to check on what lessons they are missing via an online learning platform such as Teams or ClassDojo.

“We ask that classroom teachers keep those software programs viable and have students sign up. So that when something like a prolonged absence due to buses not running, or just even one no bus day, those students can check in can see what their assignment is and can get some work done,” Jaddock said, adding throughout the period schools remained open for staff and in town students.

The division’s transportation department is guided by a policy which, among other things, outlines conditions which trigger bus cancellations.

But, Jaddock added, there is obviously more that goes into making the decision.

“All types of input that we gather on a daily basis. So it’s not just a cut and dry this is when buses run, this is when buses don’t run,” he said, adding in the case of this extended stoppage, input from the bus drivers was a major consideration.

The big problem was not the highways, but the feeder roads which were all plugged and high winds, which caused extremely poor visibility, Jaddock said,

“That made it very difficult and risky for us to send a bus out that might get halfway down the road and then hit a drift and then not be able to move.” he said. So that’s what we were basing those decisions on and more coming from the field of bus drivers who’ve been out there, who live out in the country and are saying ‘everything is snowed in. I can’t even see the road’.”

What it boils down to is safety, Jaddock said, and the well-being of students is at the centre of any decision to cancel buses.

“Believe me if we can get the buses running we want to err on that side, but we also have to err on the side of safety. We could have a bus full of students that is blocked or stuck or gone into a ditch or can’t see the road, that type of thing. So we want to make sure that we mitigate those dangers, as well,” he said. “We have to remember that we’re responsible for those students.”

Beyond extreme weather events, the division also has a temperature threshold which will trigger a transportation shutdown. But with that threshold set at -45C, temperature did not play a role in this latest round of cancellations.

“We are working and schools are working hard to make sure that students are caught up and able to get their learning done. But it was just a big sigh of relief this morning when all the buses were running,” Jaddock said.