Parents and students from Castlemaine Secondary College are calling on the Department of Transport and Planning to provide public transport options for students travelling to town after school.
Impacted families have started a petition requesting a new dedicated public bus route that aligns with school operating hours, ensuring all local students have direct, safe public transport to and from the school campus, located on the outskirts of town.
Northern Victorian MP Georgie Purcell raised the issue in Parliament last month, calling on the minister to commit to introducing a new dedicated bus route in Castlemaine that specifically aligned with the school operating hours.
“Students in Castlemaine deserve a service that fits the school timetable and allows students to get to and from town, the train station, work, home and extracurricular activities,” Ms Purcell said.
“Currently existing bus routes do not adequately service all key residential pockets of the town during peak school hours, leaving many students without a viable public transport option and forcing families to rely heavily on private car transport.”
Since raising the issue, Ms Purcell has been contacted by multiple parents from across the district who are experiencing the same issue in their townships.
“Students are only eligible for the school bus if they live more than 4.8km from the school,” Ms Purcell said.
“A dedicated school bus service isn’t much for a regional community to ask for, and it’s another example of us being left behind.”
When the local secondary school implemented stricter protocols earlier this year to meet its duty of care, students who had previously used the school bus system to get to extracurricular activities were left with no transport to town.
Parents from the CSC parents club told the Express that having no access to public transport was placing undue strain on them to leave work to drive their children to extracurricular activities.
Two parents who live 200 metres shy of the 4.8km cut-off zone for the school bus said the walk took their children an hour.
“The walk from school to town takes around 40 minutes, and on hot or wet days, or for students with mobility issues, this is not doable,” they said.
“We also want to build their independence and autonomy by being able to get themselves where they need to be.
“Not to mention the environmental impacts of parents driving them to and from school. That’s a lot of cars on the road.”