A shortage of school bus drivers last fall that stranded thousands of Toronto students and led to weeks of chaos for families was provoked by school boards’ failure to act promptly after the first signs of trouble, says a report from Ontario’s ombudsman.“If only the Toronto school boards and their transportation group had heeded the early warning signs all around them at this time last year, they could have averted or at least mitigated the busing crisis that engulfed them last September,” Paul Dube told a news conference after releasing his report on the busing fiasco Thursday.Dube’s report lays the blame for “a systemic, administrative failure” and a communications breakdown with parents, bus operators and schools squarely on the Toronto District School Board and the Toronto Catholic District School Board.Dube noted both boards have taken steps to prevent another shortage this fall and will report back to the ombudsman in six months on their progress on his 42 recommendations.The driver shortage was many months in the making, he added, with signs of problems emerging as early as the spring of 2016 after the Toronto Student Transportation Group, the transportation consortium that serves the two boards, signed on new operators and revised routes.Dube described the shortage, which affected 2,687 students including more than 300 with special needs, as “no mere inconvenience — there were serious cases where vulnerable children were at risk.”Those included junior kindergarten students dropped by substitute drivers several kilometres from their homes and left along on busy roads in violation of boards’ safety protocols, special needs students left outside schools without supervision or stuck on buses for hours.He cited examples of children as young as 4 and others with special needs who couldn’t communicate, going missing for hours after being dropped off at the wrong stops.Despite ur ...
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