Lee County schools implement new bus driver app to reduce late arrivals

Parents of Lee County students may have a solution to missing the school bus due to late arrivals or other issues thanks to a new app.

The new system will start on Thursday, starting when students get on the bus. Every student is given a card with the student’s name, school, grade and address on it. They scan the card when getting on the bus.

Parents can download the ‘Where’s the Bus?’ app and see when kids are scanned in, tracking the bus’ location in real-time.

The School District of Lee County also changed bus routes, reducing the total miles driven by more than 13,000 a day.

“It is a safety measure. So we ensure that we know not only where every child is on the way home, but where they got on and where they got off,” Donna Wilson said, a Lee County Schools bus driver, “on the way home from school on Thursday, all those badges should be passed out to those kids.”

Currently, Lee County has a driver for every school route, but they still need about 65 more people for bus driving positions.

If a bus driver misses a day of work and a substitute is called in, there won’t be a way to track that bus on the app.

“This should alleviate kids that are getting off accidentally at the wrong stop,” said Roger Lloyd, executive director of transportation, “The biggest feature, and what we’re excited about, is the safety feature of knowing where the kids are, where they get on where they get off and go on from there.”