A fight over a Morinville bus stop has spilled over into the town’s school board elections.
Matt Baty says he and a few other Morinville residents are upset that the Greater St. Albert Catholic School District got rid of their neighbourhood bus stop earlier this school year.
“We now have 14 kids that have to cross a pretty busy road, walk down the sidewalk a block and cross the road again to get to the new bus stop,” he says.
Baty says the stop was eliminated after Heather Thiessen, who is running for Catholic school board trustee in Morinville, complained about it. The stop was on her front lawn. He and some other parents are now driving their kids to school instead of using the more distant stop.
“It angers me,” he says. “It’s unbelievable that she wants to be in a position advocating for children when she can’t even have children on her front lawn.”
Thiessen, who lives next to Baty, confirms that she lodged the complaint about the stop that lead to its removal. “A lot of the parents were allowing their children to run randomly through the lawn,” she says, and she had to clear a path to her door whenever the kids tobogganed down her snow banks. (She runs a hair salon in her house.) Parents were also leaving cigarette butts behind.
This has been going on for about two years, Thiessen says, and got particularly bad last year. “The parents didn’t seem to see this was an issue.” After four or five attempts to find a solution, she complained to the district.
The stop in question affected three students from Georges P. Vanier School, says Deborah Schlag, who oversees transportation for the St. Albert Catholic district. The school’s principal talked to the students about the complaint, but the troubles continued. The district decided to remove the stop in June and sent letters to affected parents. “This all transpired before anyone was even known to be running for trustee.”
The district adjusts bus stops every year to address complaints, Schlag says. As there was another stop 75 metres away, removing this one didn’t seem to be an issue.
Thiessen says she was hurt by Baty’s accusations. “My issue with the bus stop has absolutely nothing to do with the educational needs of children,” she says. She says she had good relations with the Batys up until recently, and had even babysat their kids. “It has nothing to do with my love for students. I love them. I’ve raised two daughters in this community.”
Anyone who has a problem with a bus stop can lodge a complaint with the district, Schalg says, adding that she had yet to receive one about this one. “It seems to me that someone is making it into a big issue.”
