The Mid West community was given a reprieve and had its service reinstated for 12 months.
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00:00My name is Beverly Staines. I'm on the school board at Condonin Primary School
00:05and I'm here today because we're basically supporting Una in trying to
00:10get their bus as well. We have taken 10 years, so 2023 I think we lost our bus
00:17and just found out this year that we will have a trial for a year to get a
00:22school bus for Condonin Primary School.
00:24What impact has it had on local community and local school kids?
00:26Huge impact. We've had kids who've actually travelled out of town to go and seek
00:29education at two of the schools. Condonin's quite close to a couple of other schools
00:34and unfortunately parents have to do what they need to do to get kids on, you
00:39know, get an education. Unfortunately it's had a big massive impact on our school.
00:42So once you lose kids you very rarely get them back. A 12-month trial is better
00:47than nothing, I'll have to say that. We're quite delighted but we are concerned
00:50because it's very much a numbers game and we only need one family to leave and
00:55now, you know, the eight that we're supposed to have drops to six or
00:57something and then what happens then? So it is a bit of a band-aid but we will
01:02take what we can get at the moment and hopefully we can, you know, things that
01:06the contract will be extended the following year. We'd prefer the Evergreen
01:09type contract obviously.
01:11So we've had a reprieve for 12 months. We're going to get our bus back.
01:15There's been no detail so we don't know if it's going to be realigned or it's
01:19just back to the status quo, which isn't going to really solve anything. We need
01:23to show that the UNA solution that we put forward, which is for the two bus
01:27to be realigned, that it is the right model.
01:30So obviously you put forward a solution for the realignment. What sort of response did you get to that?
01:34We were told no, that that wasn't going to happen. It was under-utilising the other bus.
01:39They haven't taken into consideration the age of the other children.
01:43So the one bus solution effectively has these really tiny kids, so four, five and six-year-old type little kids
01:50doing some really big case, so 90-minute type runs.
01:56I know how much that's going to impact that. I remember when my kids were that young.
01:59They're just wrecked. They're so fatigued. They won't be able to learn.
02:03They always do numeracy and literacy in the morning but they've sat in a bus for an hour and a half.
02:07I'm not sure how that's going to go.
02:09I've spoken to one of the other mums that's going to be really impacted by this.
02:12She's got the little ones as well.
02:14She's just trying to get out the door by seven o'clock and she's got a fourth little one.
02:18She says it's really hard work.
02:20So yeah, it very much feels like a Band-Aid solution.
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