Timmins area school boards aim to save money with new transportation consortium

Four school boards in northeastern Ontario that serve Timmins and area are partnering to create a new student transportation consortium.

Four school boards in northeastern Ontario that serve Timmins and its surrounding region are partnering to create a new student transportation consortium.

Officials said it’s been difficult to hire enough school bus drivers since the COVID-19 pandemic and it’s one of the reasons why they need to work together.

“Some of our areas have been significantly impacted and so we know by creating this efficiency of a brand new four-board consortium, that bus driver shortage may not be eliminated, but it will be reduced,” said Lesleigh Dye, director of education for District School Board Ontario North East.

Dye said the partnership will save money.

“Our trustees have been adamant that they wanted a four-board consortium for a number of reasons, in large part fiscal responsibility,” she said.

“We are serving families in the exact same geographic location. Families have often said to us, ‘I just saw a bus go by. It was half full. How come you’re not partnering with the other district?’”

Renegotiate contracts

The change will happen in September 2026.

“We’re still in a contract with our drivers, so we’ve got to finish off the year,” said Rene Gaudreau, director of communications for Conseil Scolaire Catholique des Grandes Rivieres.

“Then it’s time to renegotiate contracts so that allows us, at that point, to get in with the consortium and negotiate together on the next couple of years.”

Gaudreau said the consortium will also prioritize hiring bilingual drivers.

“It’s definitely our goal,” he said.

“I mean, we’d love to have all bus drivers to be bilingual. If a bus driver is not bilingual, we’re hoping to have a language monitor on the bus who can speak the language.”

Dye said it’s an enormous amount of work to plan routes for the geography the boards serve, and work will get underway in the spring.

But, she added, it has been a dream come true for all boards to be working together.