EVERETT — School leaders here are hoping a little technology will help students avoid missing their buses and parents know where that bus is on its route.
The Everett School District is encouraging use of an app that will show a map of the scheduled route of a student’s bus and estimate when it will arrive at each stop — though it won’t reveal whether any specific student is actually on the bus.
It is the first district in Snohomish County using the app known as My Stop.
“We are hoping the service provides a measure of comfort for our families so they can have an idea when their child’s bus is coming and they will not be waiting at a stop if it is late,” Everett schools spokeswoman Diane Bradford said.
The app is free to families with students attending Everett schools. It can be downloaded onto smartphones, tablets and home computers and works with iPhone and Android devices.
The app only tracks vehicles and not the students on board. The data it produces is derived from GPS devices employed on each of the district’s school buses, Bradford said.
As designed, in a family with one student, My Stop will zoom directly to that child’s bus. If there are multiple siblings on different buses, parents can choose which of their children’s buses they want to find out about.
What parents and students will see on their mobile device or computer is a map with the current location of the bus and the estimated time of its arrival at each planned stop. Users get a choice of viewing it on an aerial map or a road map and can toggle between them if they wish.
Information will be updated every few seconds with arrival times recalculated to account for any delays along the route.
Another feature of the app is it enables users to receive texts from the district when a bus is delayed.
The district began promoting the app in a newsletter emailed to families before school started, Bradford said.
It is intended to be an easy app to use. Parents, guardians or students can download it from a link on the district’s website. An exact number of families that have signed up were not immediately available.
Tyler Technologies is providing the app at no charge as part of its existing contract with the district for student transportation-related services, Bradford said.
Jerry Cornfield: 360-352-8623; jcornfield@heraldnet.com.
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