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Students safer with tracking devices Students safer with tracking devices Women's Expo, run of site Morning Pointe Calhoun Posted: Thursday, March 20, 2014 12:00 pm | Updated: 1:15 pm, Thu Mar 20, 2014.
Posted on Mar 20, 2014by Erik Green
Any parent whose child has gotten off at the wrong bus stop would attest that there are few feelings worse. Luckily, Gordon County Schools is working to prevent things like that from happening. Last year the district introduced a pilot program at Tolbert Elementary called StudentConnect, which is essentially a tracking system that monitors the comings and goings of students as they leave school on the bus.
“Parents are able to opt in for the program and are able to see the route their kids are picked up on in real time,” said Mark Haas of East Coast Diversified Corporation parent company of StudentConnect. “It’s set up where they can’t see other kids. They’re only privy to their child. The children are issued cards, which they swipe when they get on and off the busses. Parents receive (text) messages that say they got on the bus or off safely or if they went to the wrong stop. It sends an alert to parents and the school if bus stops or breaks down. It’s a nice thing to have.”
StudentConnect uses “ECDC’s proprietary wireless communication between GPS and UHF RFID interrogators’ technology to deliver notifications to parents and school officials,” according to information from ECDC.
It’s also free.
“We provide it free to schools,” Haas said. “How we get revenue is that we’ve partnered with Verizon to gain the support of companies that will sponsor the (text) messages, at roughly 10 cents a message. It is a community effort at zero cost to tax payers and schools.”
Gordon County is the first school district in the state to try out the program, although there are other districts around the country taking part.
Gordon County Schools’ Transportation Director Geary Cooper said the program has been a success during the initial trial and he hopes to get the entire district on board by next school year. “They approached me and we started talking about it and I really liked the idea,” Cooper said. “We thought the program would provide a tool for parents to have a sense of where their children were located.”
Cooper said there were a few glitches along the way, but the StudentConnect staff has really been open to tweaks and ideas to make the program better.
“We are at the beginning of deployment of StudentConnect technology to schools across the country. Transportation administrators and parents can now breathe a little easier because of this technology. It adds a new dimension to child safety while riding on school buses and will bring efficiency to the management of students riding on school buses. StudentConnect has a zero cost to all schools that choose to participate,” Kirk Williams, ECDC’s Chief Technology Officer, said.
Haas said the company plans to continue to grow StudentConnect around the country with a simple goal: keep kids safe. For more information on ECDC and its group of companies, please visit www.eastcoastdiversified.com.
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