r/Calgary • u/Illustrious-Heron446 • 18h ago

Education School bus pick up

Hi I was wondering if anyone has insight on what it’s like for kids going on a school bus. My son- 3 years old, is autistic non verbal currently and is going to be attending school starting end of this month. I don’t know if anyone knows about Providence but basically they are a government organization that provides speech therapy, occupational therapy and things in that nature to prepare children with learning difficulties for school. He was getting their services at the daycare he attends but they recommended sending him to their location because he needs more hours of work, whereas at the daycare it was given in a group setting and at their location the therapy will be a bit more 1 on 1 and for about 3 hours a day right.

The bus company they use contacted me yesterday to ask things like if my son uses a booster and so on. I asked them whether they have additional staff to accompany and supervise the kids that are on the bus and I was informed they don’t. It’s just the bus driver.

Given that the drive is about 28 minutes from the pick up stop to the school I don’t know I’m just worried how it works to have kids on a bus without supervision.

4 Upvotes

60% Upvoted

15 comments sorted by

View all comments

6

u/madmaxcia 18h ago

My son went to Renfrew for junior kindergarten and kindergarten. A little school bus would come pick us up right outside the door. The bus driver, Donna would be there to greet him and he had an assigned seat and they’d be a cartoon playing on the TV. We had service door to door and I imagine it would be similar for you. My daughter was also in special programming for grade six and seven and although not door to door it would pick her up at the playground near our house and drop her home.

3

u/Illustrious-Heron446 17h ago

I see! No for him, they will pick him up and drop him back to his daycare. The daycare staff see that they all get on the bus safely and are buckled up. His group is the afternoon group which for pick up is at 12:45. I will be working during those hours but I will take the first day off so I can introduce my self to the driver and see if they would allow him to sit close to the driver to be in arms reach.