The sun rises on an empty yellow school bus.
The academic year for its English public and Catholic boards has begun without a contract for its bus operators. School buses like this one will sit unused in Renfrew County, where the bus companies and the management consortium have been unable to reach an agreement. Thousands of students in eastern Ontario's sprawling Renfrew County won't be taking a bus on their first day of school.
It and the Renfrew County School Bus Operators — made up of six companies that offer services in the county, but not a formal union — have been warning families for a few weeks.Operators say they're underpaid and the consortium is holding back money from the education ministry. The consortium, which gets its money from the ministry through the boards, says it can't dedicate more money to buses without taking it from front-line services.
Shawna Walker has three children, two of whom attend school in Renfrew County. Before she was able to find a carpool for them to take to school, she was considering sending them in a taxi. Her son is too young for school, but Shaw posted to say she has an empty front seat on her way to daycare. Anne Lefebvre, a Grade 6 teacher at the school, said it will have to improvise because it serves large, rural areas.
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