A couple from Saint-Élie-de-Caxton have to arrange school transport for their four children to two schools in Trois-Rivières, meaning the family spends an average of four hours a day in the vehicle.
In Saint-Élie-de-Caxton, Marie-Ève Champagne and her partner Pascal Landry are not in the area of their school service center.
They submitted a request to use transport outside the territory. She was rejected twice.
“A week later I called back and said, ‘What are the solutions?’ Can I walk through the doors on a city bus? Can something work? “I was told no,” said Marie-Ève Champagne.
Every morning at 7:15 a.m., the family gets into the vehicle, leaves Saint-Élie-de-Caxton, goes to the first secondary school, Chavigny, and then continues to the Académie les Estacades, located in the sector Cap- de-la-Madeleine and return home.
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This can cost up to $175 per week in gas.
The Chemin-du-Roy school service center responds that it is not obliged to offer transport to students who are not in its service area.
“Of course we go there in the order of treatment and according to the available places. What we would do is that we would pass over other people, other students who are waiting for a place on transport,” said the director of IT and transport services at the School Service Center Chemin-du-Roy, Stéphane Ayotte.
Marie-Ève Champagne and her Pascal Landry were forced to enroll the children in a school in Trois-Rivières, under threat of losing custody of some of them. This situation begins to take a toll on their morale.
“It scares young people. [Si] “You’re a high school student, you come to a new school with new friends and you’re always late, that’s not easy,” emphasized the children’s father and stepfather, Pascal Landry.
The parents presented the transport service with several compromises, such as a long journey to Saint-Étienne-des-Grès so that the young people could take their bus from there.
The Service Center has until September 30 to respond to school transportation requests.
This year, the Chemin-du-Roy School Service Center received almost 350 requests for transport outside its territory.
There are several factors behind this record number: increasingly complex family situations (patient families and separations) and the increasingly specialized program selection.
There is also a shortage of drivers.