Ever wanted to track your child's school bus? Polk approves just such a program

The Polk County School Board has approved an electronic school bus monitoring program to help school administrators and parents track students and drivers going to and from the district's schools.

The program from ReaXium, a Boca Raton-based software company, will cost $919,222 the first year and then $632,642 for the next two school years, according to documents posted to the School Board’s agenda website. The contract was unanimously approved Feb. 27.

“With the implementation of this program and training of drivers and office staff, we expect to see an improvement in route efficiency when drivers have to cover other routes, or work in areas of the county they are unfamiliar with using the turn-by-turn navigation,” a budget impact analysis report said.

Student ridership reports are expected to be more accurate because students would scan themselves into the system as they get on and off the bus with their district-issued identification cards. This information can be captured and reported to the Florida Department of Education to help ensure the district is recovering every dollar available for student transportation funding.

In his presentation to the School Board at the Feb. 13 work session, Rob Davis, assistant superintendent of support services, showed the board that the transportation department, schools, drivers, students and families will all have access to the ReaXium applications, which is expected to cut labor costs across the district.

At full staff, 510 bus drivers would have to prepare reports by hand for the state required reports, including taking roll to mark every passenger sitting on the bus and then turn that paperwork into school administrators to account for approximately 50,000 students who ride a school bus to 121 school sites districtwide – not including field trips and sporting events.

“It takes numerous, numerous hours to do that,” including many hours of overtime pay, Davis said. Brevard and Manatee counties have already seen their reporting go from thousands of hours to hundreds of hours. Flagler County also uses the ReaXium software.

The district oversees student transportation along 2,700 bus routes to and from 9,200 bus stops covering 53,000 miles per day − or the equivalent of driving around the Earth's equator twice per school day.

Davis also told the board that this program would streamline contact tracing should a situation arise such as happened during the COVID pandemic. Further, assigned seating for bus riders can also be easily completed.

The driver will also be notified if a student has embarked on the wrong bus, and that enables the driver to get the student onto the correct bus. The bus drivers will also be able to provide their time and attendance on the job electronically instead of the current program that has them filling out hand-written time sheets for every shift.

Such a system will help automate payroll and add efficiency by allowing drivers and attendants to scan on and off for payroll purposes, Davis said. In the past, paper time sheets were taken by courier to a payroll specialist, who entered the hours worked at a computer keyboard.

The tablets with the ReaXium software also offer drivers the ability to fill out inspection reports about the conditions on the bus before and after trips. Bus drivers can also create pre-trip reports on tablets, replacing the current paper forms.

Ridership reports will also be in real time so the district’s staff and administrators will be able to tell which bus a student is on, how many students are on the bus and how many need to be picked up, as well as where the student got on or off the bus and when. Knowing this could help answer parent or law enforcement questions.

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In the past, police officers responding to bus-involved crashes would wait hours for a seating chart showing how many students were on the bus and where they were seated. The electronic system will significantly speed up this report.

On the app, parents will be able to see how far away their child's bus is from their assigned stop. This will help students get to the bus stops on time in the morning and help parents with questions in the afternoon if buses are delayed.

Parents and guardians can download the MyReaXiumApp to stay informed with transportation-related updates, including bus number changes or time delays. An invitation to download the app will be sent to parents via email and they will use the parent portal to sign up.

The district has already begun a 30- to 60-day pilot this school year with live information about 10 buses going to and from schools.

School Board member Justin Sharpless favors the application for the district’s transportation department.

“As a parent of three small boys, student safety is my top priority,” he said in a text Monday. “I fully support implementing this practical solution as Polk County Public Schools relentlessly pursues all reasonable avenues to keep our students and staff safe.”

“If this program works as intended, it stands to be a gamechanger for student safety and parental communication,” Sharpless said. “Schools will know where each student is at all times while on a district school bus, and parents can monitor their own child and their child’s bus in real time, reducing mistakes and increasing communication across the board.”

At the worksession, Superintendent Frederick Heid said from his experience in inclement weather he encounters working up north, a system like this one was invaluable. He also said dead zones in cell phone coverage would be inevitable in some areas of the county.

“There will be dead zones,” he said. “There are areas within our community where you will not get connectivity. That's not the school district’s fault. That’s not the company’s fault. That’s just the reality of how cell phone coverage works.”

He also said students' location will released with pin-point accuracy because the GPS system intentionally delays the whereabouts of people being monitored for their safety. So, parents have to allow extra time for sending kids to their bus stop because of this feature.

If approved and the pilot meets the district's requirements, the company could have the system up and running by the 2024-25 school year, Davis said.

This article originally appeared on The Ledger: Polk School Board approves school bus tracking application