Student swipe cards scrapped by Hanover

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This article was published 06/06/2017 (2487 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Hanover School Division is backing away from plans to introduce a swipe card program for students riding on division buses.

Under the plan, Hanover students would have been provided with a swipe card to use when getting on a bus, allowing the division to quickly confirm which students were on board. The technology is meant to allow quick access to student ridership information, a useful tool in particular for emergency situations.

Some parents who attended Hanover’s budget consultation last October had challenged the division about the costs and necessity of such a program. At the time, board chairman Ron Falk had described the safety measure as something that parents were requesting themselves.

Assistant superintendent Rick Ardies shared with Hanover trustees on Tuesday night that the division will reallocate $38,000 budgeted to swipe cards towards school bus camera installations instead, after learning of challenges experienced in other jurisdictions with similar swipe card programs.

Ardies told The Carillon that the program has been found to be difficult to manage elsewhere, with the problem of missing or forgotten swipe cards a major hindrance to the program’s effectiveness.

The division had already budgeted about $120,000 for camera installations this school year and next school year. The additional funds should speed up the full implementation of cameras on all division buses, which was previously expected to take four to five years to complete.

Ardies said the division will continue to review student ridership program options as technology becomes more effective. He noted that some companies are in the early stages of developing facial recognition software for implementation on school buses.

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