A mother has been promised an earlier school bus pickup time for her two sons after a Global News report.
Nine-year-old Joshua Haughton has a heart condition that prevents him from making the 20-minute walk from their home to Lord Dufferin Public School.
Due to that health concern, the Toronto District School Board has allowed Joshua and his eight-year-old brother Kaleb Haughton to take a mini school bus to class for the last year-and-a-half; but as Global News first reported Wednesday, it was never on time, with the kids sometimes getting to school as late as 25 minutes past the 9 a.m. start time.
READ MORE: Toronto mother says school bus delays leave her kids missing parts of class
Joshua, who struggles with communication due to a previous stroke, has missed spelling and math tests, and though the boys’ teachers have been helpful and understanding of the situation, Joshua felt like he was falling behind in school.
But after Global News aired their story, the Haughtons were in for a shock Thursday morning when their bus showed up on time.
Being so used to the opposite, they were caught by surprise.
“I was literally throwing his bag at him as he was running out the door,” Joshua’s mom Laurie said.
READ MORE: All Toronto school bus routes will be staffed for first day of classes: TDSB
While her boys got out the door and into the school on time, Laurie still wasn’t convinced it would last, until she got a call from Wheelchair Accessible Transit about an hour later.
“They said that they are going to be changing the route pickup time by 15 minutes earlier, so that the whole route should be getting to school on time … (they’ve also) promised better communication,” Laurie said, including to call ahead to parents when they are expecting to be late.
Laurie Haughton said she’s happy the company is taking steps to alleviate the problem, but she’s still not sure why it’s took them so long.
“It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that if you’re always 15 minutes late you should leave 15 minutes earlier.”
–With files from Jessica Patton
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