Seminole County Public Schools is launching a pilot program to help keep better track of school bus riders.
Starting Tuesday, 17 schools will participate in the pilot, which district leaders said will provide an additional layer of safety for students and add efficiency.
The new system features a GPS-enabled tablet on each bus. Students will tap their ID card when they board the bus and tap again when they depart at their stop.
Joyce Moore, assistant director of transportation for SCPS, said the program could be a game-changer.
“I think in our modern day it’s important we have immediate access to not only who is on our bus, but where a student embarks and disembarks,” Moore said.
Currently, the district relies on bus drivers to keep track of students and there is onboard video that can be accessed to verify if and when a student gets on and off the bus.
With the new system, the district will have immediate access to the time and location where a student boarded and left a bus.
“It’s important to add this layer of safety and give parents peace of mind,” Moore said. “They know we have immediate access to this data.”
For younger students, the ID card will be placed on their backpacks to make tapping on and off easy. If a student forgets their backpack, the bus driver will tap the student on and off the bus.
SCPS said the cards do not have tracking capabilities themselves and only serve to record who and where students board and disembark.
“The card is only used, other than an ID, when the students tap on the bus or tap off the bus, but the card itself has no tracking capability for the students,” Moore said.
The district said they plan on gathering data from the pilot and making any necessary changes for a full implementation of the program.
The new system could be rolled out at every SCPS school as early as the beginning of the next school year.
The district provides transportation to more than 32,000 students each day.
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