How officials tried to contain fallout after a Halifax school bus went missing for 4½ hours

As the French school board grappled with how to reassure angry parents after a Halifax school bus dropped their children off more than 4½ hours late one day without explanation, the board's executive director suggested they hold a meet-and-greet where affected students would be given a treat bag from the bus company, while parents could voice their concerns.

"We obviously don't want it to turn into a rant for the angry parents, but hopefully it would be seen as a positive gesture," wrote Michel Collette in an email to other officials from Conseil scolaire acadien provincial and Transco, the bus company.

"Alternatively, we let the incident fade, and we just try to surpass parents' expectations."

No meeting was ever held, despite calls from at least two school board members to hold one.

One of those members, Marc Pinet, suggested holding meetings at "almost all [French-language] schools. There are [busing] problems everywhere."

The email, written a week after the Sept. 9, 2024, incident, is contained in a 261-page access-to-information package obtained by CBC News.

The documents reveal the anger and worry felt by parents as they recounted the horror of not knowing where their children were for several hours, how officials responded to the situation that had garnered national media attention, as well as a reminder from a school board member who had warned the bus service was "already a big problem, that it wasn't going to improve, and in fact, it was going to get worse."

CSAP spokesperson Stéphanie Comeau told CBC that while Transco initially suggested a public meeting, the company chose not to go ahead with the offer. She said the board met individually with all families who requested to do so.

It remains unclear where the bus travelled to, but a timeline provided by Transco on Sept. 12 to the board provides some insight on how the incident unfolded.

The company said the regular bus driver for route C107 was unavailable, so a replacement had to be brought in. It's unclear why the driver was unavailable.

While Transco communicated initial delays through a web portal called BusPlanner, efforts to also phone parents were hampered because "unfortunately many phone numbers were found to be incorrect or not in service."

One parent, whose children usually arrive home each day around 3:05 p.m. AT, was initially told the bus would be 25 minutes late, and then over an hour late.

WATCH | Halifax mother demands answers after school bus drops off young kids 4½ hours late:

More delays occurred because of the second driver's lack of familiarity with the route and because of traffic. Another driver was brought in to get the students home. The timeline said all students were home by 7:44 p.m.