TOP STORY
STATING THE CASE In order to make his
program a reality and a success, Weisinger told the school board that a system to locate students on the bus could also log student attendance to more accurately report the district’s average daily attendance for state fund- ing. Te board agreed, and Weisinger said Spring ISD was able to increase attendance at one of the schools by 13 percent. He also realized from
TRACKING STATUS
SCHOOL DISTRICTS SEE THE BENEFITS OF USING STUDENT-TRACKING SYSTEMS ON SCHOOL BUSES, BUT PROGRAM COSTS AND OTHER CONCERNS POSE CHALLENGES WRITTEN BY SYLVIA ARROYO
Director of Trans-
portation Frank Gior- dano deemed the RFID card-based student tracking pilot program last year a success at Clark County School District in Las Vegas. Using Zonar System’s
ZPass student-tracking system, the pilot includ- ed 700 students across all grade levels and cost the district about $2,000 for the cards and another $5,000 for the card read- ers. It also took about six weeks to set up the program and get parents and students familiar with the program. Some board members also liked the concept. But to make it per-
manent, the program faced hurdles. First, lack of money due to budget constraints. Secondly, district officials asked how the program would
work and whether the district or parents would pay for the cards. “We were hoping to
move forward, but times are dictating every- thing we do. Tere’s less money for these kinds of things,” Giordano said. “I see [student tracking] at some point taking off; it’s just not today. Maybe if we can get it onto our special needs buses (a smaller percentage of our ridership) then every- body might see the value in this.” Transportation de-
partments involved with RFID student-tracking programs on school buses are discovering the ins and outs of pitching this system to the school board for money and educating parents on how the system works to gain their support. Brian Weisinger,
18 School Transportation News January 2013
director of transpor- tation at Spring ISD near Houston, was on the bleeding-edge of implementing one the first student-tracking programs in 2003. In fact, he helped create a product solution that didn’t exist at the time for schools. “To anyone consider-
ing getting into RFID tracking, my best advice is to get campus sup- port. Without buy-in from the campuses, your program may not be as successful as you would like for it to be,” he said. “Te RFID badge has to have value in order to ensure that the students will wear it. By further- ing its value in the caf- eteria, in the library and for attendance tracking, you are more likely to be successful.”
the very beginning the importance of calling the system a “locator” versus “tracking” system. To “track” negatively implies that transporters are following students throughout the day. “With that in mind,”
Weisinger noted, “we were able to sell it to par- ents, and it was a success.” Giordano agreed on
the terminology, and add- ed that he made sure to educate parents early on. “Parents were unsure
at first, but once we described the system, sent them a letter and referred them to the ven- dor’s website, they were fine with it,” he said. “Te more that parents seemed to get involved with the system, the more they were for it.” Tough there are
parents who simply refuse to participate, be it for invasion of privacy or religious reasons. Tere have been cases in which families have filed lawsuits against districts, and the ACLU has been involved (more about this in future issues). However, invasion of
privacy seems to be a non-issue as the RFID cards — regardless of vendor — carry a
random number assigned to a student. Only the student’s school knows that number, and the number by itself cannot be linked to the student’s personal, confidential information. “Our tags are encrypt-
ed, and it would take an extremely proficient (ra- dio frequency) engineer to be able to decrypt them,” said Michael Wade, president of Wade Garcia and Associates, a San Antonio-based RFID-card student lo- cator system provider for Spring ISD and some Northside ISD campuses in San Antonio.
AGE-OLD QUESTIONS Even if money is
approved to fund such a program, districts are trying to determine the upfront costs, particular- ly with the cards. For large-size districts,
the price can add up. And who pays for the cards if they are lost or stolen? All parents may not be able to pay for replacements, if they must pay. Ten, what happens if the student has no ID badge or card to show at school? Tese very questions
were asked at Clark County School District. “Schools are con-
cerned about who will pay,” Giordano said. “It’s going to be hard for us to manage that system without the help of the schools.” l
Visit our Web Exclusives section online for more information on student tracking technology, including the types of systems currently available and how RFID cards are encrypted.
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56