Students and parents explore school bus safety

By Justin Seward - Lethbridge Herald on August 23, 2022.

Herald photo by Justin Seward Rowan O'Brien walks off the bus ahead of his mom Lindsay during the 1st Ride bus safety program Saturday at St. Paul's School.

The annual My 1st Ride school bus safety program was hosted at St. Paul School on Saturday.

The free event hosted by Southland Transportation allowed young students and their families the opportunity to learn about school bus safety protocols and to take a short bus ride and learn about their routines.

The event is all an effort to assist those kids that are taking the bus for the first time in the following school year.

“Our focus is our ‘safely home’ logo,” said Andrea Rioux, operations manager for Southlands Transportation in Lethbridge.

“So everything from us in getting kids to and from school safely home back to their families. So it’s all about safety – being safe in around their bus, being safe at their stops and getting them home every night.”

A major safety tip is making sure kids are dressed for the weather.

“So especially when it starts to get cold dress in layers, making sure that they’re at their stops on time and normally Kindergarten to Grade 1, we ask that their parents pick their kids up every night just because they are young, can get easily disorientated, and we want to make sure they make it back to mom and dad,” said Rioux.

This is Lethbridge School Division’s second year participating in the program and they are appreciative of the partnership with Southland Transportation.

“And kids get that good first start to the school year because they’re not necessarily nervous when they get on the school bus the first day,” said Christine Lee, Lethbridge School Division associate superintendent for business and operations. “And for us, and I’m going to speak for Holy Spirit, it’s a really good engagement opportunity with our community.”

“We’re unique here in Lethbridge because Holy Spirit and Lethbridge School Division partner with their transportation,” said Lisa Palmarin, Holy Spirit Catholic School Division secretary treasurer. “We share a transportation coordinator and great communication between the two school divisions. We want to make our system as efficient as possible and that’s why sharing buses and sharing routes in some cases is very cost effective and I think it’s something that can be held up across the province and the country as an example.”

For Lindsay O’Brien it was her second year in a row taking in the My 1st Ride program as a parent, but this year it was with her son Rowan O’Brien, who is going in to Kindergarten at Nicholas Sheran Elementary School this year.

“Yeah, he’s little freaked out about not having seatbelts,” she said. “So that took a while to get used to. But I think it’s a big help in getting them ready for their first day.”

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