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rett Taylor recalled years past when he would take his family to McDonald’s so his then young sons could utilize the fast-food chain’s play area. One afternoon, he looked away for


a brief second. When he looked back, he only spotted one son, Ryan. In a panic, Taylor started shouting for his other son, Austin. At the time, he recalled, the area of Orange County, California where they lived was experi- encing a rash of child abductions. “So that’s what’s going through my head,” he relayed last month, adding that the only place he hadn’t looked for Austin was in the ball pit. He jumped in, knee-deep and began searching. Other parents had become aware of the situation and asked Taylor what Austin was wear- ing so that they could fan out and help look. Austin was eventually found in another part of McDon-


ald’s looking at Happy Meal toys. Taylor said what lasted maybe four to five minutes felt like four to five hours. “All I was thinking in my head was somebody has


taken my son and I’m at a total loss of how to get him back,” he said of what he called the most helpless feeling a parent could have. Those fears could extend to when their child gets off the school bus at the wrong stop, he said. With student ridership technology, transportation directors can know exactly what bus students are riding on and what stop they get off at. The adoption of the technology is starting to pick up from previous years as misconceptions are debunked. Taylor, who is the product marketing manager for


SMART tag, noted that there have been several instanc- es in which he had to talk to parents about what the RFID cards were actually doing in terms of monitoring student location. For example, one parent shared the misconception that motorists driving by would be able to scan the card and pull the student’s information, such as where they live. “If a parent does have a concern, we have a handout we give to them, typically we email it to the district in a PDF. And we always say if they have any other questions at all, we’ll be happy to answer them for them,” Taylor said. Tyler Technologies provides flyers to parents and


guardians that communicate expectations when a district begins utilizing the company’s student rider- ship solution. The teams at Tyler also work with school district partners to help them engage with their parents or community. Word choice is also paramount. One wrong phrase turned a project sideways at Laramie County School District 1 in Cheyenne, Wyoming. About 10 years ago, the district started the process of implementing RFID cards for student riders. However, in a conversation with a parent, an administrator at the time made the mistake of calling the technology student tracking. This led to a group of parents protesting that they didn’t want their


kids “tracked,” Michael Larson, transportation supervisor for the district, explained. This forced the district to take an opt in approach rather than offering an opt out, the latter being what the technology providers recommend. Now, all 36 elementary school principals determine if they want the student ridership technology. At that point, parents of those children can choose to opt out. “The one benefit is that parents are able to receive a notification every time their student scans on or off the bus,” Larson explained of Zonar’s Z Pass. “So, if the parents have to be at work or somewhere else, when the student gets on or off the bus they know exactly when their kid has scanned on the bus or scanned off the bus. … This gives parents peace of mind.” And if for some reason the student scanned of the bus,


but never made it home, transportation administrators can see what stop the student got off at. Larson noted this is a huge game changer because if law enforcement needs to be involved, they receive the exact location the student got off the bus for a smaller search area. The technology also cuts back on having to wait for video footage and saves a lot of time and heartache for the families, he added. “Usually when the parents are calling us, they’re freak-


ing out,” Larson said about the times when their children don’t come home. He added that often the student stopped at a friend’s house or went to the park. Currently, 18 elementary schools have chosen to use the student ridership technology, and more schools ask for it every year. While the district has yet to offer student ridership on high school bus routes, some junior high routes are using it as students were jumping buses, which led to overcrowding on one bus and a very light load on another. The technology prevents students from boarding a certain bus when they are not assigned to it. Miles Cole, chief strategy officer at card solutions pro-


vider CI Solutions, explained that the success of student ridership technology depends on the administration and transportation department being on the same page. For example, RFID cards could also be used for the library and cafeteria in addition to on the bus. “A transportation director is the one starting the change in the district,” Cole explained. “They’re saying we need student ridership and they’re usually working with some- one from IT and operations. That’s where we see projects work really well, when the transportation department has a taskforce of people that understand that this is a techni- cal project that is transportation related.” He noted that CI Solutions discourages the use of the


word “tracking,” as it can give the parent the misconcep- tion that the student will also be tracked at home. But he said that was more of an issue three or four years ago. Society has sincthe term. “You want to make sure that there’s kind of three tiers to any project,” he said, adding that administration is


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