Mars to get school bus tracking app
Parents soon will have no need to guess whether the bus is late, early or on its way to drop off or pick up their children in Mars Area School District.
The Mars Area school board voted last month to approve a new GPS tracking system called Stopfinder that will allow parents to track the location of their child’s school bus in real time.
Transportation director Christina Smith said the project is in its “infancy stages,” having just been approved officially, and hopes that parents will be able to use the app sometime during the second half of the school year.
“I think it alleviates the (worry) parents would have in knowing whether their bus is coming, or has arrived or is delayed, especially in inclement weather,” Smith said. “With the (Route) 228 project going to be occurring for the next two years, I’m sure that’s going to cause bus delays. I think it can alleviate some parent anxiety over those things.”
New system
Debbie Brandstetter, the district’s business manager, explained the program at the Nov. 9 school board meeting.
“We spent a lot of time in the transportation department researching options for an app for their parents to use to see where their student’s bus is,” Brandstetter said. “It’s a two-part system. We have to have GPS on the bus, so they can use the parent app to see where the buses are.”
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