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waverlybus
Senior Member
94 Posts |
 Posted - 12/20/2017 : 1:08:57 PM
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| What does everyone's districts do for student check on and off documentation? Currently our drivers use paper sheets and check kids on and off by hand but I have heard of other districts using student ID cards and readers on each bus. We have had some problems recently with students not getting on the bus and going to friends houses. We are then scrambling to figure out if they got on or not when the parents call looking for their child. We are looking for recommendations/solutions. Thanks |
Edited by - waverlybus on 12/20/2017 1:57:51 PM
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bwest
Administrator
United States
3820 Posts |
Posted - 12/20/2017 : 1:48:18 PM
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| Interesting topic. What size is your school? Ours is about 600 PK through 12 and we don't do a check on - check off. We do daily changes though where the driver gets a copy of everyone who rides a different bus or gets picked up. We are wondering if there is a better way to do all of this. It will be interesting to see what others are doing. |
Bryan |
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waverlybus
Senior Member
94 Posts |
Posted - 12/20/2017 : 1:56:23 PM
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| We are also PK-12, but we have approx 1600 students. |
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waverlybus
Senior Member
94 Posts |
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dferrell
Senior Member
102 Posts |
Posted - 12/20/2017 : 4:38:25 PM
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We are K-12 and around 1300 students. We also don't use any kind of check off sheet or card scanner. We have talked about possibly going with something like the Zonar scanner, but just haven't pulled the trigger. Currently, the driver just gets a school bus stop assignment form whenever there is a new student. Every student that rides the bus has to have a form on file that shows their normal stop and an alternate stop and contact info, etc.
We have students that get "lost" periodically. 99% of the time they went to a friends house or other relatives house. We have never really lost anyone.
On a related issue, most of our bus stops are community type stops where the stop is centrally located and everyone walks to the stop rather than door to door service. What do you guys do with the real young - pre K or K students if there is no one at the bus stop to pick them up? Are they allowed to walk home? Do you bring them back to the school? Most of the time we just bring them back to the school and the office calls the parent to come pick them up but we recently made a change to our school bus stop assignment form where the parents can check off if they want us to drop their kindergartners off even if no one is there to pick them up and allow them to walk home. Our normal policy was to not allow them to be dropped off at the stop if nobody was there to pick them up but we had some parents complaining about having to come pick their kids up and just wanted them to walk. |
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bwest
Administrator
United States
3820 Posts |
Posted - 12/21/2017 : 06:47:31 AM
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| Interesting. We have board policy and an internal policy. The board policy is PK have to see a parent, internal is K through about 2 have to see someone (not necessarily the parent). The reason I say "about" is that different kids have different "awareness" or "maturity". The regular driver will know what their "abilities" are. I tell this to any parent who asks how we do things. Of course, the parent trumps all of this. By the way, we have very few of the "community" stops. Most are door to door. So, if no one is home the school office or myself calls and we will keep the child on the bus and bring back to school or swing back by the house if it's feasible. Being a small rural district, we probably have more personal service, such as this, than a large district is able to provide. |
Bryan |
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waverlybus
Senior Member
94 Posts |
Posted - 12/21/2017 : 06:52:45 AM
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We have never "Lost" a child, but we get plenty of angry parent calls when the child doesn't do what they are supposed to do and the parent does not know where the child is. Then it is a mad dash to contact drivers and try and find out if the child was on the bus, and a lot of the time this is after route is over and the driver is home. Its just a hassle and just happens more and more, at least 3 times a week, as parents seem to think more and more that its the schools job to raise their kids.
We do a mixture of door to door and group pickups/drop offs because we have about 50/50 mixture of rural and city kids. K and pre K are picked up mostly in Suburbans, see my other post about child restraint vests about this situation. Our policy regarding drop offs is the parent has to be present for pre k through 4th grade unless cleared by a parent with a signed consent form. |
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bwest
Administrator
United States
3820 Posts |
Posted - 12/21/2017 : 07:41:06 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by waverlybus
Its just a hassle and just happens more and more, at least 3 times a week,
This seems about par to me. We have about 1 ever couple weeks that fit into that category. I'm not sure there's a way to prevent it except to say they can only have one pickup in the am and one drop off in them pm. That would make it where they don't even have the option to get onto another bus to get "lost". |
Bryan |
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dferrell
Senior Member
102 Posts |
Posted - 12/21/2017 : 08:43:15 AM
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quote:
different kids have different "awareness" or "maturity". The regular driver will know what their "abilities" are.
This is true. Sometimes our regular drivers will hold even older kids on the bus if they know that is what the parent would want. We live in a very small community where "everyone knows everyone" - especially when the drivers have been driving the same bus on the same route for years and years.
One other thing our school does that makes it a little worse is that every Monday is "collaboration day" for the teachers. The schools get out 1 hr earlier on Mondays. We have far more issues with parents not being at the bus stop on Mondays than the other days because parents just forget.
As far as "loosing a child"...I think this will always be an issue. There are too many variables. One day the kid goes to daycare, one day moms, one day dads, one day grandmas, etc. Everyone's schedules are very busy and frankly, some parents are loosers and taking care of their kid(s) just isn't a high priority for them.
For the most part the parents are pretty good, but there are a few that shouldn't even be allowed to have kids.
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bwest
Administrator
United States
3820 Posts |
Posted - 12/21/2017 : 09:59:28 AM
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| Well said, dferrell! Sounds like here. Only exception is the stops. We only have two. |
Bryan |
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Check on Check off
