Eligibility
Alberta Education announced in Budget 2023 that eligibility for transportation will be changing. Currently students are eligible for transportation when they reside 2.4 km or greater from the school in their designated boundary.
These distances have been reduced to 1 km for kindergarten to grade 6 and 2 km for grades 7 to 12. School divisions have until September 2024 to implement the new distance requirements. The impact of these changes means many more busses on the road each and every day.
To accommodate the change in requirements, the Division's transportation provider, Southland Transportation will need to purchase buses, hire and train drivers, attend to other logistics such as more bus storage space and other resources that support the transportation system. Due to the complexity of the additional requirements and new routing required, the Division will continue to transport at 2.4 km for the 2023/2024 school year and implement the new distance requirements as required for the 2024/2025 school year.
Lethbridge School Division contracts Southland Transportation Ltd. to provide us with the Routes and Route Maps. The maps for the current school year will be found on this link:
Bus route information for the upcoming school year is expected to be available in mid to late August and may be found on Southland’s Lethbridge webpage at:
http://www.southland.ca/lethbridge
Families will also have the opportunity to use Southland Transportation Ltd.’s GPS tracking service app, MyBusStop, which provides real-time information about bus location, route stops, schedules, and possible delays. For more information, and to find your school’s code, visit https://www.lethsd.ab.ca/transportation/mybusstop-app