get transportation plans for those students to arrive at school and ride home, Smith noted. As such, the district has transitioned from Excel
spreadsheets to manage the system, which enables spe- cial education students to swipe a card for access to the bus and to provide information to parents. “We’re integrating student data from our [Student In-
formation System] and special ed program with Tyler, so we can get all that information in the software and on the tablet, so it’s easily accessible to our drivers and attendants for the specific needs of each student,” continued Smith, adding that related services required for the students will be available on the tablet as well. Technology also leads to significant driver hiring and
retention efforts. While the district’s biggest recruiting opportunity is
word of mouth from its own employees, tracked as a KPI, Smith said if current employees note they favor working for the district because of the tools they’re given to make their jobs easier and more successful at what they do, that helps.
Technology Revolution Meanwhile, Jeff Sentell, Highlands Ranch terminal manager for the Douglas County School District in Colo- rado, said SMART tag “was a revolutionary change.” Gone are paper route descriptions and route books
that were often inaccurate, Sentell recalled, adding they have been replaced by tablets that reflect changes almost in real-time in a twice daily sync with routing software. “Parent notifications of route changes or delays are near effortless using SMART tag features. Route optimi- zation is made easier with robust student ridership data and GPS time tracking,” he said. The district also favors the turn-by-turn directions,
with tweaks made directly in SMART tag software by anyone with permissions, rather than relying solely on a route planner or scheduler with routing software access. Short-term route coverage by relief drivers or other staff is just a matter of logging in and selecting the route to run, Sentell shared. “Student load and unload is relatively quick and pain-
less depending on how many have physical cards,” he said, adding fail-safe manual loads for students without a card can still be accounted for by name. The district also favors the GPS location and time data
for student boarding and off-loading. GPS location and time data help address parent complaints about buses that left the stop too early and or never arrived. “The ease of use from the admin side is superior,”
Sentell noted. In implementing a new tech system to staff and stu-
dents, Sentell suggests a small-scale ‘test’ with a few drivers. “Deliberately choose your toughest nut to crack, as well as drivers you think will pick it right up,” he said.
58 School Transportation News • SEPTEMBER 2023
“The biggest benefit is from investing the time with the ones you think will be the toughest sell. Success among drivers will come from the support they get from your staff, who should really work to be proficient with SMART tag. The resistance will subside, especially as your proficient staff can easily solve issues for drivers.” He highlighted the technology’s safety and security
benefits as well as the ease SMART tag brings to drivers and staff for formerly labor-intensive processes and steps will as well. Miles Cole, chief strategy officer for CI Solutions, noted
his company has been involved in some of the first stu- dent tracking cards created using Polaroid cameras and laminators to the use of magstripes. The last several years have evolved from routing soft-
ware to GPS to the current granular approach of routing the students, knowing where the buses are and who are the students on each bus. There are two approaches to technology investment, Cole shared: reactive and proactive. “The ROI is somewhat based, unfortunately, on an
incident such as when a second-grade student gets left out in the snow, for example,” said Cole. “That kid is now lost, and they have to call law enforcement. A public organization like a school district has to do something to show that will not happen again.” Higher performing districts look at transportation as a
service they offer to their community, said Cole, adding “when they operate in that mindset, it’s a natural evolu- tion to where we need to be better as an organization. If you know where your students are at any time on a bus, where they got on, where they got off, you’re able to de- liver more service to your parents and your community.” Cole pointed out there are differentiating factors in the use and expectations of technology within rural, sub- urban, and large city implementation and that each is adopting the technology at different speeds. In smaller communities, the mindset is that while
everyone knows the students by name, there is an acknowledgement that the district is short-staffed and with federal funding, it may be able to mitigate that by investing in technology, he points out. “The next layer, the suburbia loop of the small to midsize districts, are the ones that really look for tech- nology because they’re typically growing from migration paths from rural into suburbia or from the inner city into suburbia,” he observed. “When you have growth, you have stresses, more people, more kids. You need tech- nology to help because you can’t just keep putting more and more bodies on services. It allows you to scale and deliver the same or better service to your school district sites and your community.” While larger city school districts may derive the largest
ROI, they often have the “political problem of being a large organization and not being able to move things
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