Hortonville School District Tracks Students Riding Buses With GPS

Buses in the Hortonville Area School District are taking attendance, so to speak, of students riding them through a GPS unit that delivers information to school administrators.

For the past 18 months, two buses in the school district’s fleet have been tracking data about when students get on and off the buses as part of a pilot program that school officials are touting as a safety measure.

These buses are equipped with UniteGPS system tablets that accept swipes from about 130 school-issued student identification cards. That information is then sent to a secure website that can be accessed by school administrators in real time.

Discussions are underway about whether and when parents will have direct access to that information, said Scott Colantonio, technology director at the Hortonville district.

“Our parents appreciate the reasonable precautions we take to make sure that we not only provide a secure environment, but that we know exactly what’s going on in terms of their child’s safety,” Colantonio said.

The students aren’t lost, per say — more like misplaced. And that occurs on a daily basis, said Harry Steenbock, transportation director in the district.

They might get on the wrong buses, especially if they follow different bus schedules on different days, or they might miss a transfer and that leaves their parents frantically wondering where they are.

The issue occurs more often with substitute drivers who aren’t accustom to the faces and names of the children who typically ride the bus, he said.

“Nine times out of 10, they’re on the wrong bus and there was a substitute driver on that route,” Steenbock said of students who are lost.

But some community members have taken issue with the program, citing concerns about protection of children’s information. If parents are eventually granted access, they would only be able to see data on their children, Colantonio said, adding that GPSUnite is prohibited by the contract to mine the data for any information aside from its intended purpose.

“We’re here to solve problems and we’re trying to make sure that we don’t introduce new ones along the way,” Colantonio said.

The program’s initial cost is upwards of $100,000, and it will require $40,000 each year to sustain it if used in the fleet of buses that carry about 3,400 students.

When a parent calls the school to report a missing child, current protocol has office staff get in touch with transportation staff who try to get ahold of the bus drivers. Then, all bus divers are alerted to the misplaced student and the drivers have to walk through the bus to locate the child.

“This allows our offices to be more effective in terms of being able to get that information in a more timely manner,” Colantonio said.

Steenbock said the district has been testing different tracking systems since 2014, but UniteGPS was the most accurate and precise when it came to keeping track of the students and relaying that information to the secure database.

The school board recently approved funding for 10 more tablets to be installed on buses and the district is working on getting more cards assigned.

Steenbock said before he recommends full investment in the program, he wants to make sure the system can handle receiving data from all students within a few minutes as they get on and off the buses.