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A pilot program that would give London Transit bus passes to Grade 9 and 10 students at a London high school cleared another hurdle despite a warning about the added burden it would put on school board staff.
Thames Valley District school board trustees passed a motion at a committee meeting this week to send the proposed transit pass pilot program at Clarke Road secondary school to the full board for debate on Jan. 28.
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Trustees will decide whether the program is still viable despite the high number of staff hours that would be involved, which could mean other important work would be delayed.
“We’ve heard over and over the benefits of this program,” London trustee Marianne Larsen said. “We have right on the table an opportunity to pilot this project and we have two other willing partners.
“It would deeply sadden me that this one piece would ruin, would hold us up from moving forward and taking leadership in this area.”
Staff say the program requirements – especially a survey – would put extra pressure on the deficit-ridden board’s research and assessment team already heavily engaged in the board’s financial recovery plan.
“That will be the main focus going forward for the next month at the very least,” interim education director Bill Tucker said.
The Thames Valley board deficit for the 2024-25 school year has jumped to $16.8 million, up from $16.5 million in October, trustees learned this week.
Thames Valley staff, among other things, would be responsible for the collection, analysis and reporting of survey data associated with the proposed bus pilot program, according to a just-released staff report.
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That would require 245 hours in the first year of the program and 200 hours in the second, for a total of almost 13 weeks of work for a full-time employee and another 45 hours for a manager, the report said.
“We’re painting a landscape in terms of what the costs are, in terms of finances and personnel workload so that you can have all information at your fingertips for the discussion you need to have,” Tucker said. “I don’t want you to think we are trying to lead you down a road to say no; we’re trying to give you as much information as possible.”
The project is at the stage of developing a memorandum of understanding between the school board, the city and London Transit that will acknowledge the roles and responsibilities of each of the players.
A prior city hall report noted the two-year pilot program would cost roughly $900,000 during both years.
At the urging of London trustee Lori-Ann Pizzolato, the school board last year backed the pilot program that was supposed to start in 2024 but was delayed to September of this year.
Pizzolato introduced the proposal last year amid a shortage of school bus drivers and based it off a project rolled out for high schoolers in Kingston more than a decade ago. Officials there have said free bus passes succeeded in helping teens gain independence.
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