Safe Operations

Private Vehicles

Students are strongly advised to arrive to school by individual means, whenever possible, in order to alleviate pressure on the bus system.

Travel time should be increased to consider heavier traffic during this period.

If students are carpooling, parents should keep track of daily carpooling arrangements for contact tracing purposes.

Bus Safety and Hygiene Measures

All students who are in Grade 1 and above are required to wear a mask.

Temperature checks must be carried out for each child before pickup from home and school.

Younger students must be accompanied by an adult guardian until seated on the bus. Their temperature will be taken inside the bus close to the entrance and the student will need to disembark if found to have an elevated body temperature. 

Younger students must be accompanied by an adult guardian until boarding the bus as they will not be able to board if found to have an elevated body temperature.

In case a student has an elevated body temperature at the time of boarding the bus from school to home, they will be asked to wait for a parent/legal guardian to pick them up by private means.

In case a student shows symptoms during the trip, they must be seated 2m from other students and placed in isolation upon arrival at school to follow the incident management protocol (see Guidance on Protocols for Managing a COVID-19 Related Incident at School under Incident Management and Emergency Readiness). If symptoms occur during the trip home, the student should be dropped off first and the incident reported to the school for follow up. The student may only return upon medical clearance.

All school buses must be equipped with hand sanitizer at their entrance doors. Bus monitors should be provided with sanitizing wipes and an appropriate waste bin.

No food or drink (other than water) can be consumed on the bus.

Students must sanitize their hands when getting on the bus, and once before dismounting.

Students must maintain a distance of 1.5m from each other while boarding and dismounting the bus.

Only one bus at a time may allow students to descend and enter the school premises. Students should wait inside their bus until all students have disembarked from the previous bus.

Areas around the school entrance should be demarcated for bus drop-off organization (drop-ff area vs. bus waiting area).

Descending from the bus should be done in an orderly fashion, row by row, and respecting social distancing.

Each bus is required to have at least one bus supervisor to check students’ temperatures, dispense hand sanitizer, tend to students who require assistance, and usher them when disembarking.

Students should be assigned seating, with the same seating assignments maintained daily.

The interior of the bus must be cleaned and disinfected after each one-way trip.

Bus drivers and supervisors shall follow all health and safety standards, including having their temperatures measured and screening for symptoms on a daily basis. 

All other safety measures (i.e. driver partitions, driver/bus supervisor health requirements, etc.) for buses will be announced at a later time in conjunction with relevant authorities.

Space and Capacity Management

Following federal guidelines, buses may carry a maximum capacity of 50%. More detailed guidelines will be announced regarding buses at a later time.

Siblings may be seated together as long as they maintain social distancing from other groups of siblings/other students.

All seats must be marked with tape/paint/stickers to show students where to sit.

Where Students of Determination require additional support from an adult, a clear and comprehensive Risk Assessment must be conducted and travel plan developed.

Where Students of Determination travel on school buses and also use supplementary aids to ensure their safety, such as “car seats,” specific harnesses, etc., these should be disinfected in accordance with the protocols outlined.

Scheduling and Shifts

Schools shall review and update their transportation plans considering their fleet, number of students using the transportation facility, and the social distancing requirements.

Schools will need to stagger student arrival and departure times based on arrival/entry by bus or by other means to avoid crossover between the two groups. To allow working parents maximum time between drop-off and pick up, it is advised to schedule private drop-off before bus drop-off at the start of the day, but bus pick-up before private pick-up at the end of the day.

Schools shall collect daily bus passenger logs to enable contact tracing in case a student tests positive for COVID-19.

Provision of Bus Service

Schools are strongly advised to provide bus service to accommodate parents who do not have alternative arrangements. The provision or cancellation of bus service remains at the discretion of the school upon assessment of demand.