After giving Takhini Transport the boot at the beginning of the month, the Department of Education has reached a tentative agreement to take care of the territory’s school busing needs come next month.

Alberta-based Standard Bus Contracting will likely ratify the three-year contract with the department in approximately two weeks, Ronuk Modha, the department’s communications director, told the Star Monday.

Although a monetary value for the contract has not been released, it’s likely to be a pretty penny. The five-year former agreement with Takhini Transport was valued at $14 million.

Ron Swizdaryk, the manager of Standard’s Whitehorse office, said the bus company maintained its original bid that it submitted for the previous five-year contract.

The department has agreed to cover mobilization and depreciation costs for the contract, since its original price was for five years, not three.

Also, at the time of the original bid, Standard had buses in Whitehorse.

Now, the company will have to bring in 55 to Whitehorse and the communities it will serve, the steep costs of which the government will cover.

In fact, the company has already delivered 15 buses to Whitehorse from Thomas Built Buses in North Carolina.

Modha said there are several new aspects to the contract, including security cameras installed on each bus’ interior for safety precautions.

(Swizdaryk said the cameras were always supposed to be on the school buses.)

In conjunction with its high company standards for safety, Standard has committed to having brand new buses, which will be equipped for Yukon winters, said Swizdaryk.

School bus drivers will also be assigned to specific bus routes whenever possible – an enhancement that was not included under the previous contract and which might make for smoother operations.

Swizdaryk said it helps the kids and parents to become more comfortable with their drivers, further boosting his idea that “a school bus driver is part of a child’s education.”

These additions to the contract come after the department’s close monitoring of Takhini Transport for about a year, after hearing concerns regarding the company’s safety practices and operations.

“Towards the end of the school year, we were just not confident that the company could provide the level of service that we needed and were essentially required by contract to provide for the upcoming school year,” Modha said in an interview last week.

Takhini Transport has refused to comment on the termination of its contract.

The two bus companies have competed against each other for busing contracts in the past.

In 2011, Standard was the lowest bidder for a two-year contract in all 10 Yukon communities, shutting out Takhini Transport for the first time in a decade.

It was Takhini Transport, however, which outbid Diversified Transportation Ltd. in 2001, taking over school busing in most communities which had been held by Standard Bus’ subsidiary for about 30 years.

While Standard waits for the contracts to be ratified, there’s lots of work to be done, including hiring a fleet of bus drivers.

“It’s a crazy time (right now), but we’ll be ready,” Swizdaryk said this morning.

The first school to go in session will be Robert Service School in Dawson City, with its first day on Aug. 18.

After that, Whitehorse elementary schools will be in session on Sept. 1, with high school students going back after the Labour Day weekend.

The company will be transporting roughly 2,000 students territory-wide.

Swizdaryk said the department has not provided Standard with the finalized school bus routes and schedules as of yet.

“When it comes to school busing, they are the ones who decide the scheduling, pick-up times and routes,” he said.