La Grande School District looking into student tracking system for buses
By Shannon Weidemann (McKone) on Wednesday, May 1st, 2024 in More Top Stories Northeastern Oregon News
LA GRANDE – During the April 11th School board meeting, the La Grande School District examined current and future upgrades to its bus fleet. In addition to recently updated camera and radio systems, replacing the previous 20-year-old systems, the board discussed installing new student tracking systems for the district’s buses in the future. In the new system, students will sign into the buses when boarding, allowing the district to keep track of which students are on which bus. As explained by Superintendent Geroge Mendoza:
“Down the road, our goal is to get student tracking systems where students either badge in, or type in, that they’re on the bus so that we clearly know who’s on each bus at all times.”
The tracking system will serve primarily as a safety measure to allow the school to headcount students in the event of an emergency. While the district does currently GPS track its buses, there is no way to tell who is actually on each bus. With this new system, if a bus gets into an accident, the district will know exactly how many students are on the bus and who those students are. In this way, the families of the students can be contacted quickly, and the number of students onboard each bus can be passed on to EMS. As further explained by Mendoza:
“If we have any incident, we can quickly log in to that bus and then know all the kids or all the people that are on that bus, and then we can do any kind of emergency communication specifically to the families and the students.”
Currently, the district plans to implement the student tracking system during the 2024-2025 school year.
