Families in the West Ada School District will soon be able to track their students’ whereabouts through a new badging system installed in district transportation vehicles.

Starting in August, each West Ada middle and high school student — and each elementary student registered for student transportation services — will receive a RFID badge, to be scanned upon entrance and exit of a bus, shuttle, or other district vehicle. The goal of the new program, Chief Operations Officer David Reinhart said, is to enhance student safety and district communication.

“The (badge) is a safety measure,” Reinhart said. “It’s a communication measure…If there are ever any unfortunate circumstances, the police want to know who’s on the bus, and we, on our end, have a way to read digitally who’s on a bus and how to get a hold of their parents.”

The badge system creates a detailed tracking mechanism for students.

Parents will be notified via the district’s student transportation app when their child boards and departs their bus. Families will also be notified if their child’s bus is running late, or if their child is riding a different bus due to mechanical problems or other issues.

Drivers will also know if a student tries to exit the bus at the wrong time. At the start of the year, Reinhart said, bus drivers typically don’t know the students on their route yet. If a student tries to get off at the wrong stop, a driver may not know to stop them.

“If you can think of a kindergartner getting on a bus and then trying to know where to get off the bus — they don’t always,” Reinhart said. “ They might see a playground that they just want to play on, and they’ll get off the bus.”

But with the new badge system, if a student attempts to exit at the wrong stop, the scanner will alert the driver that the student should not exit.

And the new system helps those West Ada students who are most at risk, said Director of Transportation and Planning Miranda Carson.

“It’s really the most vulnerable populations that we have riding,” Carson said. “The non-English-speaking students, the young students, the students who have anxiety…this really is going to protect those more vulnerable populations when they’re out riding our school buses.”

The new RFID system will be implemented in new, air-conditioned buses provided through a contract with Durham School Services, a national student transportation company that also serves the Boise School District.

West Ada recently accepted Durham’s $18 million-a-year bid to provide the district’s transportation services, after its contract with Cascade Student Transportation expired. With 40,000 students, West Ada is Idaho’s largest school district. The district operates the state’s largest public transit system, serving around 10,000 students per year.

Last year, district vehicles trekked nearly 3 million miles.

And district leaders say the extensive student transportation system is instrumental to not only student success, but also community safety and health.

“Our buses get students to school on time and in a safe manner,” said Reinhart. “They’re important to the community. They ease traffic and make the roads safer for pedestrians.

They’re safe modes of transportation — plus, they’re easy to see.”

West Ada’s registration deadline for student transportation is July 31. Click here for more info.