Granbury ISD pilots StudentVUE GPS and ID scanning on special-needs buses; full rollout planned next year
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Summary
Transportation director described a StudentVUE pilot that installs GPS tracking, RFID student ID scanning, and parent notifications on special-needs buses; district plans phased implementation and parental opt-in for ParentVUE alerts.
Granbury ISD transportation staff described a district pilot of StudentVUE, a GPS tracking and RFID student-scanning system for school buses, and said the district will expand the system incrementally to regular routes.
Brian Cruethers, the district transportation director, told trustees the pilot began with specialized transportation units this spring and that hardware and RFID cards have been installed on participating buses. The system combines BusView GPS, driver tablets and a ParentVUE notification feature to give real-time location data and boarding records.
"Think of those RFID cards like the tag on a garment," Cruethers said, describing how a student swipes a small card on board and the scanner registers the swipe. He added that the cards contain only identification numbers and the system links scans to student data stored in the district system; the cards themselves do not carry personal data that would be readable by a third party.
Parents who sign up through the district’s ParentVUE application can receive bus arrival estimates and late-run notifications, Cruethers said. The district trained transportation staff and front-desk campus personnel in February and plans a summer rollout to distribute IDs and communicate sign-up instructions to families. Full implementation for all buses is planned for the next school year.
Cruethers said the district evaluated several vendors and selected National Fleet Tracking (NFT)/StudentVUE because of price, the vendor’s local presence in the region and positive references from nearby districts. He said the district already used the system to locate a student earlier the same day when a parent reported a child had not arrived home.
Trustees asked about privacy and lost cards; Cruethers said a lost card contains only an ID number and that student identification and photo appear only on district IDs, not on the RFID signal.
The board received the update as an informational report; there was no action required.
