cameras inside and two stop-arm cameras,” she said. Among other pluses, Schomisch said she likes that the expanded capabilities protect drivers when students tell parents a different story about a situation than what actu- ally happened. “The cameras are also useful for teaching drivers when there has been a situation that might have been handled differently or better,” she said. “I think my drivers need to see how they react to situations some- times. It helps them become better drivers.” The adoption of new technology doesn’t always work
as well as anticipated, at times becoming part of the problem rather than solving it. At Salem-Keizer Public Schools in Oregon, new GPS software has not performed as advertised. “We went from a solution specifically de- signed for school transportation to one that was not and have found that we’re missing some of the functionality,” said Director of Transportation T.J. Crockett. “We have been working to upgrade the software.” Similar challenges are being addressed in other areas
of transportation. “Some systems we use are good in theory but in
execution have been more limited,” he noted. “Student transportation and allocation of assets seems to be much more nuanced, and some of the systems we use seem to be fairly rigid.”
He cited an example of having a varied schedule de- pending on the day or event, necessitating the creation of multiple student records in the system to reflect all trans- portation options. Another need is the ability to better manage field trips. “We can cap an overall number for a day, but not a
number of trips during route times when our resources are less available,” he shared. Crockett added that bringing on new tech isn’t just
about hardware or software but also the people using it, including those who may not embrace change or feel up to the challenge. He said his department still has a contingent of team members that did not grow up with advanced technology, and in some cases it’s been hard to motivate them to move away from what they know and have done previously. “Since student transportation tends to grab an older
demographic, it seems like we may have several more years of transition until we would be able to do away with some of our old, paper-based systems,” he said. He also pointed to the fact that bus driver jobs are tran-
sient in general, and many do not spend their day at desks or computers. “Asking them to make that part of their routine has been a bit of a challenge both for completion of documents and dispersal of messaging,” he said.
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