School District Automates the Management of
Student Ridership and Reporting

The State of Texas requires school districts to provide records of special ed students who are utilizing public school transportation as a qualification for Medicare reimbursement. To comply with this requirement, bus drivers in the Brownsville Independent School District in Brownsville Texas, using an attendance form, would put a check next to each child's name as they boarded the bus. But this manual process was prone to human error and it took a lot of time to compile the information and create the required report. Moreover, if the School Transportation Department needed to confirm that a child was on a bus, they would have to radio the drivers to find out. The child's name could be heard by all 25,000 students and drivers who ride and drive the 300 bus fleet, thus invading that child's privacy.

Brownsville Independent School District needed a more efficient way to manage the ridership of their special ed students, comply with Texas State law, and protect the safety and privacy of these students.

They found the solution to their issues with EveryRider™, a rider attendance application from Everyday Solutions, Inc. EveryRider accounts for who rides the bus and when they ride to improve safety and security. Each rider is given a rider ID card that they run through an on-board barcode scanner each time they step on and off the bus. Every transaction is recorded in a central database and management reports are created with this information. The reports enable the district to perform capacity analysis, simplify state reimbursement reporting and track actual ridership to adjust routes as needed.

Now, the school district can quickly and easily find out not only who's on the bus, but also monitor how much time is spent riding the bus to comply with the district's best practices. If a parent calls to ask where their child is, they can tell the parent right there and then on the phone if their child is on the bus and when the bus will be arriving.

Compiling rider attendance reports is much easier too. "We now have a computerized system so we can get the attendance information directly off the system," said Jose
Chirinos, the Transportation Director of the School District.

Mr. Chirinos said, "We currently have 700 special ed students using EveryRider on 100 buses. In the next phase, we will add 17 more buses that will be transporting 4,000 regular ed students starting in September 2010. Detachable landyards will be distributed to the students to help them keep track of their cards. As part of the EveryRider roll-out, we sent a letter to our principals communicating the benefits of EveryRider and they in-turn sent a letter to inform parents. The Parents have been 100% supportive of the program."

Prior to purchasing EveryRider, Brownsville Independent Public Schools went through an extensive RFP process to find a GPS/AVL solution. They narrowed their search to five vendors and selected Everyday Solutions. When asked why they chose us, Mr. Chirinos said, "We chose Everyday Solutions because it was the best company with the right solution. Since we're very happy with Everyday Solutions' products and services, it made sense to deploy EveryRider for rider attendance to streamline the accounting of student ridership."