Parents call for increased communication and compensation from OSTA after a ‘tumultuous’ first month of school

The Ottawa Student Transportation Authority (OSTA) is apologizing for failing to resolve driver shortages, especially in rural communities, before the beginning of the school year.

“The last month has been tumultuous and frustrating for parents and students,” explains the OSTA board of directors in a statement, adding that, “In time, we hope to re-earn the trust of parents and students, and we are committed to ensuring this situation never happens again.”

The apology comes as OSTA also announced a leave of absence for its chief administrative officer (CAO), Vicky Kyriaco, who had been facing calls to resign after a difficult start to the school year, which saw over 9,000 students without school bus transportation.

Parents like Cheri Nixon, who is the co-chair of the Ottawa Parents for Access to Student Transportation Facebook group, hopes a change in leadership will offer new solutions.

“The big thing that we’re looking for from them right now is some actual communication about what they’re doing, because we haven’t had that all along from OSTA,” said Nixon in an interview with CityNews Ottawa on Oct. 3.

The board of directors will appoint an interim operations manager and said staff have assumed all of Kyriaco’s responsibilities in the meantime.

“I think the funding question is the next piece,” said Nixon, adding OSTA should not be receiving any additional funding from the provincial government unless they can prove they are managing their funding appropriately. “Once that’s done and the review happens with the third party and it’s determined that funding is the issue, then that’s something we’ll be pushing for.”

In the meantime, as parents continue to make alternate arrangements to get their children to school, she believes some form of compensation should be in order.

“Simply because parents have been paying out of pocket, they’ve been shortening their work hours, and they’re struggling financially, so there needs to be some form of financial remuneration paid to parents just due to this whole fiasco.”