Dufferin-Peel  Catholic  District  School  Board

                                       40 Matheson Blvd. West, Mississauga, Ontario, L5R 1C5  Tel: (905) 890-1221  Fax (905) 890-7610

Information for Parents Regarding

School Start Up Transportation Procedures

·         If your child is newly registered at their school, in late August or September, and eligible for transportation per Board Policy, you are required to assume responsibility for getting your child to and from school until transportation arrangements have been confirmed by the Transportation Department. This may range in time from a few days to two weeks.

• All transportation issues and concerns should be directed to your child’s school of attendance. Please be aware that requests for bus stop location adjustments or additions or route adjustments will not be addressed until late October. The priorities for September and early October are eligible students requiring service, bus overloads and route timing adjustments.

• Please be aware that delays do occur to bus runs during the first few days of school as drivers are still familiarizing themselves with routes and students and significant delays occur with student pick ups in the morning and the initial few days of bus loading procedures at schools. After the first few days of school, route timing will become more consistent.

• If your child is in Junior or Senior Kindergarten or Grade 1, it is required that a parent/caregiver meet the child when they disembark from the bus at noon or at the end of the day. Children in these grade levels who are not met at the stop will be returned to their school.

• If you wish to challenge eligibility measurements, we will be pleased to do so, however, these have been carefully measured and in many cases are long established. As with stop adjustments, we are unable to address these until later in October as other system issues take priority.

• Please be patient. The Transportation Department is responsible for transportation of approximately 65,000 students to 300 schools on 1400 buses. This is being accomplished with an Operations staff of 15. Every effort is made to complete required adjustments as quickly as possible, but there are limitations, particularly communication processes with schools, parents, bus operators, and drivers, which limit the volume of changes which can be implemented each week.