On Monday, February 6, Kelly Kildea dropped her two children at the bus stop ahead of a new day at school, then turned around and walked home.
Minutes later, her son Jamal, a Year 7 student, and daughter Jamila, a Year 10 student, appeared behind her.
They said they had lined up to get onto the packed Sanctuary Lakes bus as usual before being told by the bus driver to go to the back of the bus and board via the rear doors.
The students said the bus driver then shut the doors and drove off, leaving them and multiple other students stranded at the bus stop.
Ms Kildea said her eldest daughter took the flustered children to school, where she received a parking fine.
“There were no signs saying she couldn’t park there, but apparently she was supposed to know because it wasn’t marked,” Ms Kildea said.
This was not the family’s first grievance with the school bus system.
Ms Kildea said Jamila had been catching the bus since last year and complained it was packed and she could not get a seat.
Ms Kildea went to the bus stop one morning to see for herself and said it was clearly unsafe.
“They were packed like sardines,” she said.
“There was nothing to hold into, the kids could go flying.”
Ms Kildea said her husband called the bus company and was told it was licensed to carry that many people and that there was safe standing room.
She said Jamila didn’t take the bus the entire second half of last year because it caused her so much stress.
When Jamal started Year 7 this year they decided to give it another try.
She said that the bus would often get so packed that as the students were trying to get on after school the bus driver would tell students not to get on and then shut the door, leaving the children at school.
“One time I was on the phone with Jamila and I could hear the bus driver yelling in the background,” Ms Kildea said.
She said picking students up from school was very inconvenient, but that they could normally get picked up.
She said some kids would be stranded if their parents were at work or unable to get them for whatever reason.
“There’s just no duty of care,’’ she said.
“They both have bus passes and a subscription.
“But they got left there.
“Transport is not being properly provided.
“Any kind of impact and some kid is going through the window.”
She called the school after the Monday morning incident, and someone said they would hold an emergency meeting and get back to her, but she was yet to hear back.
She said it made Jamila so stressed last year that sometimes she wouldn’t want to go to school and Jamal didn’t want to go to school after the incident on Monday.
Ms Kildea said the school needed new transport infrastructure and that it was a mistake to think that you could move all the students to one location and then try and use the existing bus systems.
“Fixing the buses would probably help a lot with the traffic around the school, because a lot of people are probably having to drop their kids off because they don’t want to go on the bus,’’ she said.
“Kids are trying to do the right thing, getting up and getting themselves to the bus stop, and this is what they have to deal with.”
The News reached out to the Greater Shepparton Secondary College through the Department of Education, and to the Department of Transport, asking about safety concerns of Ms Kildea and other parents and the incident which left multiple students stranded at the bus stop.
The Department of Transport referred the News to the Department of Education, who said public transport to and from school in the urban areas of Shepparton and Mooroopna was run by the Department of Transport.
“Greater Shepparton Secondary College is working with the Department of Transport and the local bus company to investigate this complaint,” a statement from the Department of Education read.
Questions to the departments about safety, overcrowding and more were unanswered.