Video captures how upset a Georgia elementary school parent is after his daughter, a 5-year-old, was left behind instead of being put on her bus — for the third time this year.
After the video went viral, the student’s father said parents from all over the country have contacted him saying they’ve had similar experiences. This School District transports over 130,000 children by bus daily and strives to get everyone to their final destinations without incident, according to school officials. If you put that into perspective, that’s a lot of kids on a lot of buses going to different places every single day. It is the school’s responsibility to keep students safe – from the moment they board the bus in the morning, to the minute they’re dropped off at their stop in the afternoon. Let’s break it down further…
Why did this happen?
- Lack of accurate, parent-managed daily dismissal instructions
- A manual, paper-based, error-prone communication process
- Many schools don’t have systems and scalable processes in place to avoid these incidents
In this case, let’s examine the 2 main problem areas: The 1st problem area here is Accountability. The 2nd problem area is Dismissal Management. This makes it extremely important for schools to answer questions like:
- Do we have a single dismissal instruction for each student – on that day?
- Are we putting them on the right bus?
- Are we sending the carline student home with authorized drivers?
- Are students being checked into the right activity?
- Are walkers allowed to walk home, and did they leave as part of the walker group?
How School Dismissal Software Can Help
To solve these problems, schools need to start looking from the outside in and explore more scalable solutions, like SchoolPass, which helps to engage parents and school administrators in a seamless way to enhance student safety and accountability. Schools can now have a centralized “system of record” of each student’s arrival and dismissal plan, that is seamless integrated with the school attendance system.
In this case, the parent and the school staff would know that the 5-year-old was scheduled to be on the bus – she would therefore be on the bus manifest, and/or checked onto the bus using the SchoolPass staff app, and the parent would be notified that the student is on the bus, and that the bus has just left the campus with their daughter enroute to the planned stop.
Find out more about the SchoolPass solution successfully used in more than 20 states across the country.
Originally posted and reported by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
