Student Transportation
Welcome to the NLSchools' Student Transportation/Busing information page.
The Student Transportation Parent Portal is designed to provide families with important information regarding their child's eligibility for busing and transportation schedule. By creating an account on the Parent Portal, you will have access to details such as your child's bus route, assigned bus stop location, and projected pickup/drop off times. Additionally, you will receive email notifications about any routing changes that may affect your child throughout the school year. We encourage all parents to click on the Parent Portal icon above and create an account to stay informed about their child's transportation arrangements.
Click on the dropdowns below to learn more.
SAFETY
Safety is an integral component of any successful student transportation system. The main factors of maintaining a safe student transportation system are:
Safety is an integral component of any successful student transportation system. The main factors of maintaining a safe student transportation system are:
- Safe Buses
School buses are required by law to meet the Canadian Standards Association's D250 school bus standards, a prescriptive manufacturing standard that school buses must be built and maintained to throughout the service life of a school bus.
To give an illustration of how safe school buses are, here is a quote from the 2020 Strengthening School Bus Safety in Canada report by the Federal Government's Task Force on School Bus Safety:
Children traveling to school by school bus are 72 times safer than those traveling to school by car, and 45 times safer than those walking and cycling to school.
For more information on why school buses are so safe, please go here.
School bus operators are required by law to arrange for the completion of two Commercial Motor Vehicle Inspections every year by an Official Inspection Station (a business licensed to inspect school buses). These inspections must be completed by a certified journeyperson mechanic. These two inspections are completed over the summer and in December. Additionally, Highway Enforcement Officers from the Department of Digital Government & Service NL complete an inspection of every school bus in the Fall of each year as well as a random inspection of 30% of the Province's school bus fleet on top of that at any time throughout the year. All of these inspections are very thorough.
So every year, 70% of school buses are inspected 3 times a year, and 30% of school buses are inspected 4 times a year! To give some perspective on this, you may want to ask yourself when was the last time you had your personal vehicle inspected from top to bottom?
By law, bus drivers are required to conduct, and document, a trip inspection every 24 hours and report any major defects to their supervisor immediately which need to be repaired before the school bus can return to service. If a school bus is involved in a collision, it must be inspected by a certified journeyperson mechanic before returning to service in consultation with the Highway Enforcement Division.
- Safe Drivers
School bus drivers are held to the highest standards of safety and preparedness. NLSchools outlines its standards in its Student Transportation Driver Standards. In order to transport students using a school bus, a driver must maintain a valid Class 2 Driver Licence (or Class 4 - Commercial) for smaller school buses) from the Motor Registration Division of the Department of Digital Government & Service NL. As per Motor Registration Division protocol, drivers holding a Class 2 or 4 commercial licence require a medical to be completed every 5 years until age 45, every 3 years until age 65 and every year after age 65.
The NLSchools Driver Standards includes driver documentation, minimum qualifications and how NLSchools evaluates drivers. This includes regular Criminal Record & Vulnerable Sector screening as well as annual Driver Record screenings.
In addition to a variety of school bus operator directed training, NLSchools maintains a school bus driver online training system. Through this system, all drivers are given specific training assignments each year on a variety of safety topics and student transportation procedures that are required to be completed in order to be eligible to transport students.
All drivers are also required to participate in emergency school bus evacuation drills with students every Fall and maintain a valid Emergency First Aid, CPR & Epipen certificate.
- Safe Route Design & Bus Stop Locations
NLSchools is responsible for designing safe bus routes and bus stop locations. The routes are determined by a set of criteria outlined by the Department of Education which is captured in the NLSchools Bus Route & Stop Guidelines. Such criteria includes, but is not limited to, distances between stops, line of sight, posted speed limits, avoiding left turns where practical, widths of roads, grade of roads, intersections, traffic lanes and number of students.
NLSchools is responsible for the safety of students from the moment they step onto the bus in the morning and until the moment they disembark the bus in the afternoon. However, it is the parent's/guardian's responsibility to ensure their child gets to and from their assigned bus stop safely.
- Policy, Procedures & Laws - Safety Focus
The school bus industry is one of the most highly regulated industries in Canada. The following entities have laws or policies and procedures that regulate the school bus industry in order to maintain the highest degree of safety as possible:
- Federal Government (noted above)
- Provincial Government
- Legislation (particularly the Highway Traffic Act)
- Department of Education
- Department of Digital Government & Service NL
- NLSchools
- Policies
- Procedures (some of which are located on this website)
- Includes the NLSchools School Bus Safety Program
- Classroom Instruction
- Emergency School Evacuation & Loading/Unloading Drills
- Driver Training
- Policies & Procedures
- Periodic School Safety Campaigns
- Includes the NLSchools School Bus Safety Program
NLSchools:
Government of Newfoundland and Labrador:
- Vehicle Idling Policy (FIN-503)
- Vehicle Usage Policy (FIN-504)
- NLSchools Student Transportation Handbook / Stakeholder Expectations
- Courtesy Seating Protocol/Application Form
- Bus Route and Stop Design Guidelines
- Emergency School Bus Evacuation Drill Protocol
- Student Transportation Driver Standards
- Field Trip Protocol
- Kindergarten Transportation Identification Protocol
- Student Transportation Vehicle Idling Protocol
- Student Expectations on the Bus (to be posted in every bus)
Government of Newfoundland and Labrador:
BUS ROUTE DOCUMENTATION
Below is a list of all schools with updated bus routes. To view the latest Bus Route information for your school, click to open the list and select the bus route document to view. (Only schools with updated bus route documentation available will be listed.) If no bus route document is available below, you can check the School Directory for last years bus route documentation, or please contact the school or your regional office. To view a school profile page with complete school information including bus route information, click on the school name or check out the School Directory to select your school's profile page.
Below is a list of all schools with updated bus routes. To view the latest Bus Route information for your school, click to open the list and select the bus route document to view. (Only schools with updated bus route documentation available will be listed.) If no bus route document is available below, you can check the School Directory for last years bus route documentation, or please contact the school or your regional office. To view a school profile page with complete school information including bus route information, click on the school name or check out the School Directory to select your school's profile page.
Below are bus route documentation sorted by school.
Busing Operator Login Public Inquiry Form Bus Safety Tips Brochure Contract Template Location of Tenders Highway Traffic Act/Regulations Courtesy Seating Protocol/Form
To report an Emergency or a Bus Service Delay, please call:
- Labrador Region
Tel: (709) 896-6025 (Includes all of Labrador) - Western Region
Tel: (709) 637-4040 (Ranges from Northern Peninsula to Southwest Coast to the Baie Verte Peninsula) - Central Region
Tel: (709) 256-2547 Ext. 238 (Ranges from Badger to Arnold's Cove, including Bonavista and Burin Peninsulas) - Avalon Region
Tel: (709) 729-8200 (All the Avalon Peninsula)