Students received new bus passes to begin the Helena School District’s new bus pass system. This system tracks the students as they go on or off the bus.
“It provides security and safety for the students because the most important thing is that we know where students are at all times, before and after school,” says Drew VanFossen, the Transportation Operations Manager at Helena Public Schools.
Parents can also be involved in this system with the Edulog app.
“Any parent with a smartphone, with access to that parent portal app to go ahead and download that, register their student and go ahead and be able to track their student scans,” says VanFossen.
Every time students walk in or exit the bus, they must scan the pass and the parents will get notified that their kid is on or off the bus in the Edulog app.
“I think that the Helena community should be really proud that our transportation is at the cutting edge. There’s not a lot of school districts in Montana that do this,” says VanFossen.
VanFossen says Helena is the first school district in Montana to implement these new passes. Helena Public Schools estimates that this system can cut travel time on the bus by 2 or 3 minutes at each pick up and drop off location.
“And what we’re trying to do is just make sure that we are ahead of the curve, as opposed to catching up 10 years down the road,” says VanFossen.
These passes will not be required to ride the bus. However, Helena Public Schools encourages all bus-riding students and their parents to take advantage of this free bus pass.
If a student has not received their free pass, you can request for a pass at the Transportation web page.
