School district to use bus scan cards

New ID system to help keep track of students

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. » Over the next several months, school busses throughout the Saratoga Springs City School District will undergo some changes.

Tyler Drive, based in Austin, Texas, approached the school district to see if they had any interest in a pilot program. The director of transportation, Cheryl Dalton, said district officials thought the proposal was an incredible idea.

The main component allows students to tap scan cards while entering and exiting the bus. The Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) card acts as their ID when boarding and leaving the school bus. The card will also contain each student’s photo, name and barcode so that the card can be utilized as an ID card for other district-related purposes.

“It has an accountability piece,” said Dalton. “I thought it was a big deal for parents, too, because we quite often get calls from parents where they couldn’t remember if they stayed after for a club, or a child got off at a bus stop in the neighborhood, or the fact that their child got on the bus; so, we thought that was really huge.”

Additionally, the cards will help the nearly 100 bus drivers in the district.

“It’s quicker than drivers, a lot of times you see them with hand held clickers, where they’re counting their kids,” said Dalton. “... There’s the counting feature right on the dash, and it’ll literally show zero kids when all of the kids get off the bus, too” Throughout this week the bus drivers have been going through various training with Tyler Drive. Dalton mentioned how quickly the cards are recognized by the card reader.

Aside from the benefits of keeping track of how many children are on the bus, there’s a GPS element that will make traveling more efficient.

“We thought that was huge, especially our substitute drivers with being able to have something other than paper that assisted them throughout the district because we cover 110 square miles, and especially in areas

like Greenfield,” said Dalton. “Some of those streets don’t even have road signs on them, so that’s always been a little bit more of a difficult area for us.”

Dalton hopes the new features will help attract drivers.

“It’s going to be a really good feature,” said Dalton. “And I’m also hoping it even helps us on the recruiting end because it’s very difficult to get bus drivers because it’s a big responsibility, so I hope it helps a little bit, too, knowing [the busses] have GPS now.”

At the end of this month, Tyler Drive employees will be onboard as Maple Avenue Middle School and Dorothy Nolan Elementary School implements the system.

Cards, cardholders and backpack attachments will be issued at the student’s specific school building. There’s no student information stored on the card. In late February and early March, Caroline Street, Geyser Road and Greenfield elementary school students will receive the cards. The school district ends the roll out in April with Division Street and Lake Avenue elementary schools and the high school being implemented.

In total, more than 6,000 students district-wide ride the bus on a daily basis.