EDUCATION Kiddo-tracking technology coming to school buses
Parents will be able to use a new app this fall to track the precise movements of their children’s school bus.
Real-time information will be relayed along with any updates that the bus is delayed somewhere along its route.
“‘My Ride’ is a mobile app which allows parents to track the location of their child’s school bus and receive updates, enhancing communication and providing peace of mind for students,” Central Okanagan Public Schools operations director Rob Drew writes in a report to trustees.
The 73 school bus routes already have an on-board system, installed this year, that provides the driver with information on scheduled stops, directions, predicted start and end times for each trip, and the names of student passengers. It also assists with employee timekeeping and vehicle inspections.
Just over 5,000 K-12 public school students, equal to about one-fifth of total district enrollment, ride school buses each weekday. They are currently being given an electronic bus card.
Per a board resolution approved earlier this year, the annual per-student busing fee will rise from $400 to $450 this fall.
But still, the fees won’t cover all the system’s operating costs, and a subsidy of about $4 million - using government-supplied money that would otherwise go directly into schools - is necessary each year.
The provincial government does not require school districts to offer busing, and many do not. In the Central Okanagan, students are considered eligible for busing if they live more than three kilometres from the nearest elementary school, four kilometres from the nearest middle school, or 4.8 km from the nearest high school.
The Kelowna-based district operates the largest school bus fleet in B.C.