CATCHING a bus has been child's play for a long time, but recent months have made the entire process decidedly less simple.
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Weeks after Newcastle's state drivers walked off the job in protest over pay and conditions, this newspaper has been detailing the short notice parents have received as school buses fail to show up.
No-one would argue the present situation is an ideal one.
Parents understandably rely on the traditional routes to run the kids to school. Given the lockdown and COVID requirements thrust upon them in recent years, fresh hiccups are far from welcome.
On the other hand, a shortage of qualified bus drivers and workforces struck down by the first combined COVID and flu season not marred by lockdowns in Australia in many ways ties the hands of the bus company.
How do you replace sick drivers when the workforce is already depleted, and struck by the random nature of illnesses?
These are the quandaries of living with COVID.
That said, the safety of children must be paramount in the systems designed around their schooling.
The dangers of youths finding themselves both stranded and unattended, for however long, are clear to any parent.
Sayth Renshaw's nine-year-old son Isaac found himself at the crux of the problem this week at Raymond Terrace, walking about five kilometres in the rain from the bus stop to home after his bus didn't arrive.
"It started raining and he knew he was supposed to go to school, but there was no way to communicate and no one provided him with any advice. I didn't know anything was wrong, none of us knew anything was wrong, no one informed us, so he turned up upset and absolutely drenched," Mr Renshaw said.
As with supermarket shortages, the supply side of the equation is not always quickly sorted out. Qualifying drivers takes time, and is a system that could not and should not be rushed.
So what is the answer?
Giving parents ample notice appears to be the best that can be done for now. Operators using a social media page to share updates is a step in the right direction, but if a less mobile child or one with special needs finds themselves stranded the potential consequences are unthinkable.
Every effort must be made to maintain faith that the wheels of the bus service will keep on turning. Nobody wants this problem to get even worse.
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