By Mackenzie Myatt
In a statement to the public on June 6th, Halifax Regional Centre for Education (HRCE) revealed they have notified Stock Transportation that their contract will end early and a new service provider will be in place for the 2020-21 school year. In the meantime, Stock Transportation will still be supplying service for the 2019-2020 school year.
It’s quite the job: there are 23,000 students in the HRM area who require daily transportation. HRCE said it is likely they will contract more than one company for the job.
In an email announcing the news to parents and guardians on June 6th, Elwin LeRoux, HRCE Regional Director wrote “In September 2019, Halifax Regional Centre for Education will begin providing greater oversight in the areas of communication and routing, with a plan to completely take over these responsibilities for September 2020.” LeRoux said that HRCE was preparing a Request for Proposals (RFP) to go out this summer
Doug Hadley, Coordinator for HRCE Communications Services, said in a statement to the Cooperator that the RFP is being written so that a company could bid on the entire region or part of the region: “We will accept responses to the RFP from any service provider that can deliver the services we are looking to procure. No company will be precluded from submitting a response.”
The response to LeRoux’s announcement on the Facebook group “Parents for Safe and Reliable Stock Buses” was mixed. As Andrea Withers wrote on June 6, the announcement was “both good and bad news. Good that they will not be using STOCK however they will still provide a service 2019/20. Will there be more issues during that school year? Will STOCK respond and rectify any issues or not bother because they are not going to have a future contract. Also HRCE have made many bad decisions, are they going to make sure the new companies and the transition for the 2020/21 School year goes smoothly? I have my doubts.”