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Board approves new transportation routing software, board members press for clear rollout plan
Summary
The Petersburg board approved a multi-year agreement to move to a Tyler Technologies routing and fleet management suite to replace an end‑of‑life system; trustees pressed staff on implementation timing, training, RFID rollout and parent communication before the system goes live.
The Petersburg City School Board voted on July 15 to approve a recommendation to adopt a multi-year agreement for new student transportation routing and fleet-management software from Tyler Technologies.
New transportation director Mr. Kanda told trustees the division’s current routing software reaches end of life on July 1, 2027, and argued adopting a single integrated Tyler suite would improve automatic routing tied to PowerSchool, provide real-time tracking, enable driver manifests and support digital work orders and fleet maintenance. He recommended a five-year agreement and said phased implementation could begin this fall with fuller features later.
Kanda said RFID student cards were being discussed as a second-phase option (the district could start without RFID by using PowerSchool manifests and tablet manifests on buses) and estimated an early implementation window as soon as October for limited functionality, with RFID considered later. Board members pressed for clarity on training, turnaround time, maintenance, the number of students to register (about 4,000 students were cited in Q&A), and how parent communications and registrar updates would be handled.
Trustees emphasized the need for a robust communication plan so families can update addresses in PowerSchool and registrars can ensure student records are current; one board member asked for an implementation schedule with milestones and responsibilities. Kanda said Tyler offers hands-on training and the vendor has worked with neighboring jurisdictions; he said the district would piggyback on Fairfax County’s contracting terms.
The board approved the transportation routing software agreement (voice vote recorded as "Aye" in the transcript). Separately, the board later approved a related I&M shuttle and transportation contract used to support homeless students.
What happens next: District transportation and technology staff were asked to return with an implementation timeline, training plan, registry and communications plan, and a cost/contract clarification from finance about how the new agreement interacts with the current vendor contract.
