By Tina Comeau
THE VANGUARD
NovaNewsNow.com
The school board’s transportation department has been working throughout the summer to ensure that bus routes are worked out for the upcoming school year. This includes the new busing required as a result of the reconfiguration of Maple Grove and Yarmouth Junior High.
Tri-County Regional School Board students return to class for the start of a new school year on Tuesday, Sept. 7.
It will mark the first day of the new reconfiguration whereby students from Grade 7 and 8 in the town and parts of the county attend Maple Grove and those in Grade 9 attend Yarmouth Junior High.
For students who live in town and would traditionally walk to school, it is the first time they’ll be transported by bus to class.
On its Tri-County school board website, the school board has posted the bus routes for all of its students according to civic addresses. For students living in town wondering where they will access a bus, people can do a search using Yarmouth as the keyword and the civic addresses of where the buses will pick up and drop off students appears.
Dale Royal, the board’s coordinator of transportation, says students are to access the bus stop closest to their home.
There are five bus routes that will accommodate students in town who will travel to and from Maple Grove, although these aren’t necessarily empty buses. They will have students on them from the county.
The buses won’t travel up and down every side street. There are a limited number of bus stops in the town.
“We have a number of them within the town,” says Royal. “It’s balanced (with an equal number of stops ) in the north and south.
“We also have transportation for those on the outskirts of the posted walking distance for the school board.”
Royal suggests there is only one bus stop where there may be a large number of students congregating, and that’s the one at Yarmouth Junior High.
Meanwhile, parents and students are reminded to be at the bus stop five minutes before the scheduled stop. If a student misses the bus – just as is the situation in the county – the onus is on the family to get that student to school.
If you live in town and don’t already know what bus stop is closest to your home, and you don’t have access to the website, you can contact the school board office directly. The telephone number for the office of the coordinator of transportation is 749-5663.
Royal says the busing required because of the reconfiguration has not added any great expense to the school board.
You can search the school board's bus routes by clicking HERE.
