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District questions cost and coverage for bus-tracking tablets as vendor offers training
Summary
At the June 16 Pleasantville Board of Education meeting, vendor BusRide (BestRide) answered questions about GPS/tablet 'lag,' confirmed app updates usually propagate within seconds, and said the district’s 27 licensed tablets do not yet cover five recently purchased buses; adding licenses was estimated at $1,400 per bus and the vendor offered on-site summer training for transportation staff.
The Pleasantville Board of Education heard a presentation from BusRide representatives on June 16 about the district’s bus-tracking system and tablet licensing as the board prepared for the fall transportation season.
Amber Monterotti, representing BusRide, explained how the vendor’s platform reports bus locations to drivers and parent apps and addressed frequent reports of delay on the parent map. Nathan Zepeda, identified earlier as a state-level executive for the company, told the board the most common causes of apparent lag are weak cellular service in some areas and stale route assignments in the district’s admin portal; most changes, he said, propagate from the platform to the driver tablet and then to the parent map in roughly two seconds.
Board members and public commenters raised specific operational questions. Members asked whether out-of-district or displaced students could be tracked; vendor staff said administrators can manually add such students to the platform and then assign them to a route so parents receive real-time updates. The vendor confirmed that tablets and licenses are tied to district-owned devices and that contracted third‑party carriers do not need separate licensing if the district provides the tablets.
Finance questions focused on licensing counts. Administration said the district budgeted for 27 bus licenses but recently purchased five additional buses that are not included in the original contract; the per-bus license price cited in the discussion was $1,400. Board members asked whether the additional licenses were in the current budget; the administration said the budget accounted for 27 licenses and that money would need to be found to cover the five new buses.
Board members asked for vendor-led training to avoid glitches, and BusRide offered on-site training at no additional charge to help transportation staff understand workflows, routing updates and parent engagement strategies. The vendor also offered to supply follow-up data — including the current number of parents actively enrolled in the parent app — and to put training logistics in an email to district staff.
The board tabled a separate transportation line item (4.3) involving additional tablets for further discussion in executive session about routing and out-of-district student logistics; the remaining transportation items on the consent packet were approved by roll call.
Next steps included vendor follow-up with a written estimate adding licenses for the five new buses and a plan for summer training for transportation staff so the district can reduce tracking glitches prior to the school year.
