Simcoe County Student Transportation Consortium

as a student myself i feel extremely angry and unsafe riding the bus, my driver is often 15 to 45 minutes late with no explanation, during extreme wind it isnt canceled, same for black ice, freezing rain and snow squalls, bus driver and consortium are awful, do better

Dealing with this company" is brutal. Trying to change a stop location is near to impossible. The employee I dealt with was heartless and rude. My children take two separate buses

I am “2 meters too close to school” for my kids to get on the bus, which passes by our house? and I don’t have a vehicle. My children are 8 years old with autism and 4 years old first year of JK so they aren’t walking alone. Regardless of how close the school thinks we are we are still a 15 minute walk and for my kids in the winter this isn’t something I want them or myself doing every morning and when I call they say I can try to appeal it but will most likely be denied??? No other school in the district comes this way because we are within the Ferndale school zone? i’m so unbelievably frustrated with the lack of care for kid’s transportation

Horrendous. 2 big disappointments in one week. Yesterday our bus was 2 hours late. No excuse or apology was given. Their updates on their page stated 35 minutes and then 55 minutes late....not even close. Today I got my request for a route change denied. The denial came back so fast I doubt they even read the email. I simply asked if my two kids (5yo and 9yo; the only ones at the stop) could have their stop moved to in front of our house at the end of the day. We are a corner lot and the bus stops at the corner for a stop sign anyways, before going 2 more blocks away to drop them off. I figured that was pretty easy. Nope, no reasons given other than the current distance they walk is Acceptable". Do not expect this company to listen or consider your requests."

My son rides the bus for 1.5 hrs each way per day. Yesterday he was on the bus in the heat for an extra 30 minutes because they can't seem to keep a driver on our route. Our kids are suffering and clearly based on the reviews here they don't care.

I just read in todays Barrie today newspaper a story about the consortium not knowing there was going to be a snowy storm today in parts of the county! Hello...... everyone knew this except it seems the staff at the consortium. They dont really care that students have to stand outside in -30 weather to wait for a late bus. They would not like it to happen to their children but its ok if its someone else :( If anyone gets a chance please read the story in the barrie today.

So as a student, I’m sharing my opinion.Today my bus was 10 minutes late, and it was the same yesterday. This then caused me to be late to my first class. The bus was also late today and YESTERDAY for our school which ends at 2:05, and we should be on the bus by 2:15, but the bus finally arrived at 2:22. The bus driver that we have is a trainee, A TRAINEE IS DRIVING WITH KIDS. This is not a good mix. My bus driver almost hit the back of a transport as they were not paying attention to the road, luckily the person training the trainee informed the trainee that they were about to hit a truck. No accidents, but it bugs me and makes me FEEL UNSAFE when a trainee is put with kids. I do not feel safe even when the bus driver drops us off and I am home I still don’t feel safe because of what happened throughout the day with the bus.

This is the most unorganized, unprofessional and cold hearted service I have ever dealt with and to think they manage the bus system that transports our previous children to and from school is mind boggling. As a concerned parent that had their child put on the wrong bus, I called to inquire why their “letter of change” did not actually state the change, certain wording is not present like “the changes are…”. I get a call back from an employee basically saying they don’t control the program to generate the letters that go out and nor do they take suggestions/concerns to try and make changes to this broken system. Saying they don’t have a designated stop it can be at any corner of the stated crossing streets, parents ARE NOT required to be at the bus stop (only kindergarten parents) and they are too busy to have these conversations as it’s out of their control. Are you not funded with tax payer dollars? So you don’t have the time to take the suggestion and bring it up on your next meeting? If your current program doesn’t allow you to enter important information, maybe it’s time to look into a new program vs saying this will not change so get used to it. That is not acceptable considering you’re basically saying you can take whatever route with our children and drop them off. So if a child gets off at the wrong stop who is to blame, the child ? When the changes are bare minimum and sent out just before a long weekend.

So many issues with this company and late pickups/dropoffs and inconsistent alert system. While many issues can be blamed on driver shortages, there is no excuse for putting our kids on busses that can't have the windows up in the middle of winter. Pic taken 3/6/2023 but this is a regular occurrence with bus 239. Driver herself agreed when I suggested the bus should be pulled off the road.

My son’s school bus continues to be cancelled based on projected weather, not actually occurring weather. Another bus cancelled day and it’s perfect weather outside. This is ridiculous, again. The kids are far enough behind already. Additionally, there seems to be a revolving door of bus drivers on our route.