Parents decry end of bus monitors for special

Ever since she was in junior kindergarten, 18-year-old Olivia McIntosh has boarded a special-needs bus with the help of a bus monitor.

Now in Grade 12, Olivia – who has cerebral palsy, a seizure disorder and is nonverbal – must ride the bus without one, creating a situation her mother Ashlie McIntosh calls “dangerous.”

The cash-strapped Thames Valley District school board eliminated bus monitors on her daughters’ route that takes her from Ilderton to a developmental program at Medway high school, without any notice at the beginning of school year.

“This year nothing – just a bus driver,” said McIntosh. “It was a kick in the gut to all of us (with children on the bus). Not one piece of communication, not one.”

What that means, she said, is a 25-minute ride “with no eyes on them.”