WCS Transportation Director Mark Fick explains a new student tracking system to the school board.

WARSAW — Warsaw Community Schools is preparing to launch a program that will give parents additional peace of mind regarding student safety.

WCS Transportation Director Mark Fick told the school corporation’s board of trustees on Tuesday, Oct. 16, that a tracking system will be launched soon that should be able to keep tabs on the whereabouts of students during the bus rides to and from school.

Fick said the system will function courtesy of student IDs and a scanner on each bus.

“We’ll basically be able to identify the students when they come onto a bus and we’ll be able to track them in live time, so we don’t get these calls of ‘where’s my kid?’” Fick said.

WCS’s Chief Technology Officer Brad Hagg told the board that parents will have access to that information.

A planning meeting is scheduled at the school corporation’s transportation office at 9:30 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 19, and Fick said the system would be tested with bus drivers acting as students and boarding buses, which would then be driven to locations.

Planners are also trying to develop the program to work with one student ID to avoid students having to carry more than one card. The program is scheduled to begin Nov. 1 and will roll out first with Claypool Elementary School.

“When the student gets on the bus, until the time they get to the school, we can track where the student’s at,” said Fick, adding that planners are still working on the functionality to determine whether students will have to swipe their cards or whether they will be automatically scanned when they get on the bus. The program will work by tracking the busses and therefore students who are scanned can be identified with that bus until they disembark. Fick and Hagg explained to the board that the system would not monitor students all day, just while they are on a school bus.