SPECIAL REPORT
comes in making their workday better while maintain- ing trust, safety and adoption at scale.”
Putting it All Together Expect a hefty dose of anxiety at points along most
implementation schedules. Such anxiety is best mitigat- ed with careful planning and introspection into other complex projects a school transportation department has experienced in the past. It is equally important to capture metrics and performance indicators of any technolo- gy implementation as such data and information can be subsequently used to substantiate investments and provide further help for future implementations. This is especially true when new funding must be sought, sub- stantiated and defended before and after a project. Jackson said the most common mistake is underesti-
mating how long staff need to build real comfort with a new system. He added teams that succeed usually have a vendor or routing consulting team involved well past go- live, not just during setup. “A single education session before launch may not be enough, but [instead needing] a trusted advisor
who returns weeks later,” he said. “Once staff have hit real problems and have real questions, [that] can turn confusion into confidence in a way a manual never will. Progress also rarely happens evenly. Dispatch might get comfortable with a new system in weeks, while driv- er-facing adoption takes a full semester to catch up, and that is normal rather than a sign something has gone wrong. If I could do it differently, I would treat the first few weeks after go-live as part of the deployment itself, not the finish line, with a team of experts still in the room asking what is and is not working.” It is crucial to acknowledge that users are the crux of
an implementation. If users are accepting of the new technology, implementation is prone to work well and sell itself now and into the future. “Technology only works as well as the people us-
ing it every day,” added Jackson. “The best systems in the world will not fix a rollout that skips staff buy-in or rushes into the education process. Districts that treat deployment as a partnership, with their vendor and with their own team, are the ones who see the best returns.” ●
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28 School Transportation News • NOVEMBER 2026
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