A day of solidarity has turned into a day of gratitude as school buses are now set to run again in Renfrew County.
In a news release Monday evening, The Renfrew County Joint Transportation Consortium (RCJTC) announced that they had reached an agreement in principal with seven bus companies.
A tentative start date for school buses to run again will be shared by Friday, Oct. 11, with confirmation of the start date coming by early next week.
We spoke with local parent Scott Rutherford who said he was grateful for the decision.
Up until the announcement, Rutherford had been organizing a ‘day of solidarity’ at local schools, where students would have stayed home from school to support those that were unable to make it as a result of lack of busing.
He said the idea came from his daughter.
“She came home and her friend in their class was one of the children that couldn’t come to school because of it [lack of busing]. And she said ‘if he can’t come to school, we shouldn’t be able to go to school.’ So I didn’t really have a choice to say anything but, you know, “you’re right”.
Now that the buses will soon be running again he said they’ve rebranded the day of ‘solidarity’ as a day of ‘gratitude.’
“We thought that would be a good new brand for the day. Everyone did stand in solidarity, and now people can stand in gratitude for the folks that did what they needed to do to get this done. And also all the gratitude for folks who went through so much during this time.”
Rutherford says he feels that those who spoke up about their struggles with not being able to get their kids to school had a big impact on the outcome.
“When you’re in that situation, I can only imagine it’s tough to to speak up and say, hey, listen, I’m not able to make that work, which is absolutely understandable. But it’s also understandable that they wouldn’t want to have their stories shared so broadly.”
Rutherford said he wanted to thank those that bravely spoke up.
“A few of the folks stepped up and shared their stories with national news. I do believe the fact that those stories were getting written had a big role to play in getting this turned over. So I want to thank those moms, they were all moms in this case, that we’re talking to media in this situation.”
The consortium says agreements with the bus companies will be finalized during the next week. They say they are multi-year agreements that at minimum will run until the end of the 2028-2029 school year.
