Pupils awaiting school transport ticket face long road

Thomas Lyons & Sean McMahon

The run up to today was an anxious time for Rosemary Potter. She is one of a group of 21 parents awaiting a decision on the allocation of a school transport ticket for her daughter following today's meeting.

At present Rosemary is engaged in a car pooling scheme along with other parents bringing their children to the Eureka School in Kells. Some of the pupils missing out on the school transport scheme gather at The American Store, Maghera before 8am on school days to travel 13km to attend their secondary school.
On a bright dry Tuesday morning the young ladies, including Rosemary's daughter Hanna, group together before starting their journey.
“My daughter is in second year this year. Last year she got a school bus ticket, but was classed “concessionary”. Our nearest school is Virginia College, so she got her bus ticket by chance. This year she has been refused a bus ticket and we have to arrange our own ways to Kells. We now have to wait on a letter telling us the outcome of the meeting,” Rosemary told the Anglo-Celt.
Local councillor, Shane P O'Reilly, contributed to a discussion on the matter at a recent CMETB meeting. He seconded a proposal of Cllr Seamus Coyle that a delegation from the CMETB seek an urgent meeting on the issue with John Halligan, the Minister of State for Training, Skills, Innovation, Research and Development.
Cllr O'Reilly said that withholding tickets is financially penalising parents for making a choice: “In the case of the Eureka School the parents have opted to send their daughters to a single sex catholic ethos run school. That is their choice. Now they have been told by the Department that they must send them to the nearest school. It is an absolute nightmare for parents if they are off the beaten track.”

Ethos

The cost of the school transport ticket is €350 per year with a family cap of €650. Rosemary said that private arrangements are prohibitively expensive: “The next cheapest arrangement we can make is around €700 for the year. In a couple of years we will be sending a second child, so it will be €1,400 a year in school transport.”
She says that the motive for parents to send their girls to Eureka is based on ethos. 
“We chose to send our daughters to Kells because it is a catholic school. We sent our children to the local primary school, which has a catholic ethos, and we want to do that through secondary school, but the Department say that we need to send our child to the closest local school in order to to be eligible for the bus.”
This is also the basis of the application to the review body, either today (Friday) or in a month's time.
“We have appealed the decision based on ethos,” said Rosemary. “There is an appeal hearing Friday September 22 (today), when most parents affected hope to have their appeal heard. But it is not guaranteed. Some won't get that appeal heard until a month's time which is October 23.”
At present parents are either car pooling, paying for private bus or using the normal CIE bus route. Rosemary said that last year an additional bus was put in place to cater for concessionary ticket students. 
“No one missed out on a bus ticket last year. Obviously we are not going to change schools, but I am not sure where it is going to go from here. It will depend on how the board rule on it.”
The CMETB Meeting in the Community Centre in Kingscourt last week passed the motion by Cllr Coyle calling on Minister Halligan to address and resolve the hardships, inconvenience and stresses to pupils, parents and school managements caused by denying students school bus transport.