WAITING at the bus stop for a school service that should have already arrived, Lucas Stokes, 11, made a reassuring promise to two younger and worried students.
"He told them he was not going to leave them, that they would either go with him [if he got a ride to school] or he would stay with them," said Lucas' mum Jacquie Stokes, who was at work when he told her at 9.05am the bus hadn't arrived, 25 minutes after it was due.
"He organised for these girls to ring their family and send text messages out."
Lucas, his sister Kaylee, 8, and another four students at the Medowie bus stop were among several stranded on Tuesday - the first day of term - when Hunter Valley Buses cancelled three school services with no notice or replacements.
Port Stephens MP Kate Washington said the cancellations mostly affected families in Medowie and the Tilligerry Peninsula whose children attend Irrawang High, Wirreanda Public, Catherine McAuley Catholic College and St Philip's Christian College Salamander Bay.
Ms Stokes called her children's school, Wirreanda Public, which hadn't been notified about the cancellation.
She then called a friend with an eight-seater car, who along with another mum collected the waiting children.
Ms Stokes said this included boys in kindergarten at the next bus stop.
"I thought to myself 'How long are these little boys going to stand there for before they realise this bus isn't coming? What if someone [dangerous] comes along and picks them up?'" she said.
"It left me feeling really scared for these kids and I was angry and disappointed. That bus company knew that bus wasn't going, one phone call would have saved panic for everyone."
Ms Washington said it was a scenario replicated across the area, as parents "took it upon themselves to drive the bus routes to pick up students who were not their own children to get them to school".
She said Hunter Valley Buses had cancelled several school bus services in the past six months.
She said like Ms Stokes, many parents need to have left for work by the time their children are waiting for the school bus.
Many children have no way to contact their parent if the bus fails to arrive and no other way to get to school.
"Fears for the safety of their kids is top of mind [for parents]," Ms Washington said.
"We've heard from families who have lost shifts at work, are struggling to actually maintain jobs because either their service bus does not turn up to connect them to their own job or the school buses aren't turning up and they need to take their kids to school."
She said some students arrived late to school, while others missed the entire day or found themselves "scrambling at the end of the school day trying to work out how to get home".
"Are kids just meant to stand there in the hope a bus is coming?" she asked.
"It's putting more work on our schools and our teachers as well because they're staying behind [in the afternoon] to make sure kids finally get on a school bus when one turns up."
A spokeswoman for CDC NSW [Hunter Valley Buses' parent company ComfortDelGro Corporation] said COVID-19 was having a "significant impact" on operations, with a shortage of drivers at the Thornton depot "resulting in a higher than expected number of trips requiring cancellation".
"In the Medowie area we operate 14 dedicated school buses that pick up students in Medowie and transport them to various schools across the region," she said.
"On the day in question we had to cancel one vehicle operation due a last minute absence.
This vehicle is scheduled to provide three school trips."
She said CDC NSW prioritised covering school trips "by utilising all available support staff... licenced to drive".
"We are required to manage staff absenteeism on the day.
"Our protocol for these cases is finding drivers who assist [to] go off route to pick [up] and drop [off] these kids; drivers who finish around the area are asked to operate school trips late as well."
She said the company was running a recruitment campaign and would hold monthly information sessions at its Thornton depot for the rest of the year, starting on July 30.
A spokesperson for Transport for NSW said staffing shortages "may cause services to be diverted at short notice, terminate early or be cancelled for the safety of customers and workers".
"When scheduled services are affected operators will try to inform customers, where possible, so that they can make alternative travel arrangements."
They said CDC's seven year contract started on July 1, 2021.
Ms Washington said she and Shadow Minister for Transport and Roads Jenny Aitchison met Minister for Regional Transport and Roads Samuel Farraway in late June and ministerial staff, Hunter Valley Buses and Transport for NSW this month.
"[Hunter Valley Buses] say 'As soon as we know a bus will be cancelled we let the school know', great, what happens in the morning?
"It is not the school's responsibility to communicate to families that their child's school bus will not turn up. We were also assured there would be service buses to replace cancelled school buses - that did not happen."
She said the company was contracted to "deliver an essential service, which they are unable to deliver".
"At what point is something put in place to make sure it doesn't happen?" she said.
"No-one is doing that. I've spoken to other bus companies who suggest that there are local industry led solutions that the department has not explored, that other bus companies could pick up contracts.
"If Hunter Valley Buses cannot deliver on the contract and another company can, surely that should be explored... we cannot have a situation where kids are left stranded on the side of the road."
Ms Stokes has downloaded a bus-tracking app and made three plans about what her kids should do if the bus doesn't show up.
She was late to work on Wednesday because she waited for the bus and considered suggesting a roster for parents to stay and make sure the bus arrived.
"But that is not what public transport is for, these school buses are designed to safely pick up our children and drop them off and it's not what we got from them," she said.
"We as parents should have faith in the fact the bus is going to turn up."
Nicole Dann said her two children had missed two full days of school this week due to bus cancellations.
Ms Dann lives in Tanilba Bay and drives to work in Medowie.
She said she dropped her 16 year old son and 13 year old daughter at the bus stop at Lemon Tree Passage around 7.20am to catch the 7.35am route 137 bus to Hunter River High on Tuesday.
When the bus didn't arrive another student at their bus stop called Hunter Valley Buses and was told the service had been cancelled.
"I went into panic mode as I was unable to leave work at the time," Ms Dann said.
"My kids catch this particular [public] bus as it is the only one they get a seat on, all other buses are so full they have to stand in the aisle of the bus.
"In the end they decided to walk home and it took them 25 or 30 minutes to arrive home.
"Lucky for me my eldest son was at home, otherwise I would've had to leave my workplace with no staff to come home and let them in."
The service was also cancelled on Wednesday and her children missed another day of school.
Ms Dann said she is concerned that there will be future cancellations.
"I feel that I should be able to have confidence that I drop my kids off and the bus will without fail get them to school," she said.
Ms Dann said in the past drivers had driven past the roughly 15 students in school uniform waiting at the bus stop. "I really just gave up complaining to the company as nothing ever got done."
