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School system to pilot MyView bus-tracking app; board hears benefits and operational questions
Summary
The district plans a MyView parent-facing bus-tracking pilot this spring and staff outlined a potential later ZPass RFID card rollout. Vendors and staff described parent alerts and operational advantages, while board members raised questions about driver burden, card swapping and notification timing.
The Isle of Wight County School Board heard March 13 that the division will pilot MyView, a parent-facing bus-tracking app, with a possible later expansion to ZPass, an RFID-based student scan system. Transportation staff and a vendor representative from Zonar described features that give parents a limited-time view of a bus approaching pickup or during drop-off, and an optional card-based system that logs student scan-on/scan-off events.
Demario, an account executive from Zonar, told the board that MyView displays a bus location to parents in a defined geofence and that ZPass provides scan alerts when students board and leave buses. He said the ZPass card stores only an ID number linked to the district system; when a student scans, parents can receive text or email alerts that the child has boarded or disembarked. Transportation director Matt Fike said the division is preparing a pilot and will send details to families when it begins.
Board members and staff raised operational questions: how the system handles missed scans or lost cards, whether students might swap cards, and how quickly the system flags a student who does not scan off. Demario said technical teams would provide a specific “no-scan” alert timeframe and that younger students’ cards can be secured to backpacks to reduce swapping. Board members emphasized driver training and a phased rollout, suggesting summertime implementation to work out “hiccups” before full school-year use.
Staff said MyView funding is proposed for fiscal year 2026 and that the pilot will begin “ASAP”; the full ZPass implementation would follow pilot findings and further planning. Transportation and IT staff committed to provide the board with follow-up details on vendors in the region using the systems and on how the software handles missing scan events.
