Not this fall, but in time for the 2026-27 school year, all four school boards in our region will be part of the same bus transportation consortium.
For many years, the French Catholic board has run its own. Director of communications René Gaudreau says that was because parents wanted more flexibility. Now they want collaboration. Gaudreau say this move will be a cost saver, but the main factor is a driver shortage.
“We’re seeing it’s harder and harder to find employees to drive those buses,” he says, “and if we can find some synergies there and find some ways of combining some of those routes, we might end up with a few less drivers, but definitely in the long ru, less buses travelling down the same roads and offering this flexibility to the parents still.”
Gaudreau says the four boards are organizing a brand new consortium.
“It’s going to be a new board of governors that are going to run it with an executive director that’s yet to be chosen. So in the next couple of months they’re going to develop the policies and procedures and we’ll have more information to share with the parents sometime next year.”
Gaudreau says from his board’s perspective at least, employees whose jobs might be affected have been told they’ll be taken care of.
