A potential strike by school bus drivers in the Greater Toronto Area could affect tens of thousands of students across the region, and leave riders at 28 Toronto schools without transportation on Thursday morning.

Contract negotiations between First Student Canada, which provides school bus drivers across the GTA, and Unifor, a union representing workers at the bus company, are expected to continue up until midnight Wednesday.

Unifor has said it will strike at 12:01 a.m. Thursday morning if a fair contract isn’t reached.

“School bus drivers deserve decent wages and working conditions and we’re not willing to settle for less from First Student,” said Debbie Montgomery, president of the union local, in a statement issued last week.

The Toronto District School Board said nine of its schools could be affected by the strike, while 19 Toronto Catholic District School Board schools could be without buses.

Both boards said in separate statements on their websites that they won’t be able to arrange for alternative drivers if First Student drivers go on strike.

At Queen’s Park, Education Minister Mitzie Hunter encouraged both sides to continue talking and reach a negotiated settlement so that students aren’t adversely impacted.

“I know that the parties are still at the table, and I think that’s the best place that they can be,” she said Wednesday afternoon. “I would encourage both sides to think about what is at stake and continue the conversation.”

In the meantime, she added, “my expectation of school boards is that they do have contingency plans in place, and that they communicate what those plans are to parents” in advance.

Following busing chaos in Toronto at the start of the 2016 school year, which was blamed on a driver shortage, her ministry has since provided additional funding to boards and is looking at ways to improve the system.

“We know how important school buses are to students,” she said. “It’s the first and last part of their day in many instances across this province. We want to make sure students arrive on time, safely and ready to learn.”

With files from Kristin Rushowy