first on decorahnews.com: New software will allow Decorah schools to know which bus their students are riding on

The school day has ended and buses are heading out to take kids home.  But when a parent waits for the bus, their kid doesn't get off.

Decorah School District Transportation Director Jim Samuelson says it's a common occurrence, especially in the fall and especially with younger children.  That's why he and some other school district employees began researching software and hardware that would let school districts track their buses--and the students that are riding on them.

Monday night the Decorah School Board voted 4-1 to spend $42,000 next year to purchase software and hardware from a company called "EduLog" that will provide school officials with real-time information about bus transportation.

The software will handle routing, scheduling, driver monitoring and other tasks.  But it was the software that would allow school officials to determine which kids were riding which bus that prompted the most discussion by the school board.

Superintendent Mike Haluska stated that "security matters" prompted school officials to research the student tracking system.  Middle School Principal Leona Hoth told school board members "We need to be able to tell parents where their kids are."

School board member Ron Fadness agreed that the school district needs to always know where a kid is when someone calls.  But school board member Brian Petersburg thought the annual cost of $10,067 from the second year onward was too great.

School officials had already started studying the school bus software before a Decorah school bus crashed into a car earlier this spring.  That incident led to a lot of calls from parents.  The new software and hardware would give schools live information about bus locations and bus passengers.

Samuelson says the more common situation, however, is when kids, especially young kids, go somewhere other than where they said they were going after school.  The new software and hardware will allow Decorah schools to give a better answer to a parent's frantic question: "Do you know where my kid is?"