Fewer ‘privilege seats’ will be available on school buses from this September, the Isle of Wight Council has warned.
Parents and guardians of children affected by changes to the council’s home to school travel contract will be written to this week.
The council said the majority of the 900 pupils eligible for home to school transport assistance would receive a school bus seat. Others will receive a pass for a public bus with some being given a train pass to use on Island Line.
Privilege seats have only been available in recent years due to the contracted service having too many surplus seats compared to the number of children eligible for local authority funded transport.
Those spare seats are sold on a first come first served basis to parents who choose to send their child to a school outside their catchment area.
The privilege seat fee that parents pay goes some way towards offsetting the cost of the seat, but each spare seat costs the council around £1,000 per year.
With the current 5-year home to school travel contract about to expire, the council aims to procure a service that best matches demand.
An Isle of Wight Council spokesperson said:
“As a result we anticipate that the number of available spare seats on buses and coaches will reduce significantly from September 2020.
“The savings brought about by these contractual changes were agreed by Full Council in February and will help the council to continue to deliver all essential services to residents.”
Some information on transport options can be found here.
So, parents of normal children trying to get them to school will suffer, whilst all the ‘specials’ will get free taxi rides into all schools, instead of one yellow cheap bus taking such to one especially equipped school purpose built to handle these problematic children with staff trained to cope with their odd behaviour and needs.
See how as usual, the majority will be paying more to give to the nere do well minority, because their parents have a ‘choice’ to inflict these fiscal burdens onto normal state schools, which have to have costly adaptions to health and safety and have specially trained staff to accommodate such, but these selfish parents are NOT paying for ‘that choice’, WE WILL.
See it how it ‘is’ now, costly sentiment and choice are a luxury that the people can no longer afford.
Knighton, you are off the mark here. Special schools are much more expensive to run per capita than ‘normal’ state schools (I don’t know what an abnormal state school is). That’s why there aren’t many of them, they are focused on children with very high needs. So SEND children going to mainstream school is actually saving money compared to special schools. Also SEND children (with EHC Plans) in mainstream school receive extra funding for support staff, but this extra funding tends to benefit other (non-funded) children (as you might refer to as normal!) which need learning support, as often this resource is shared within the classroom. Also staff with better knowledge about children with a range of needs, is a good thing for the whole school, as more and more children need supporting for social, emotional and learning needs. Bit like society as a whole and the physical and mental health wellbeing drum! But if normal like you, you don’t cost any extra.
‘Problematic’ and ‘odd behaviour’ well aren’t you delightful
What a load of crap so if your child has been accepted to a school outside the catchment area for learning or special needs issues will and isnt gortunate enough to get a seat the parents need to stump up the cash or not work to make sure their child gets in on time. Bear in mind the parents will also be fined if the child is continuously late but as both working parents we have to work to afford to live.
Thanks isle of wight council so glad our council tax is being well spent. Self serving
What a load of crap so if your child has been accepted to a school outside the catchment area for learning or special needs issues and isnt fortunate enough to get a seat the parents need to stump up the cash or not work to make sure their child gets in on time.
Bear in mind the parents will also be fined if the child is continuously late but as both working parents we have to work to afford to live.
Thanks isle of wight council so glad our council tax is being well spent. Self serving, what a thank you from the IWCC to all key workers. Something to look forward to