Talbot County Public Schools rolls out bus tracking app for parents

EASTON, Md. – In Talbot County, parents are getting an added tool to track their kids getting on and off the school bus. It’s a move that’s been two years in the making for Talbot County Public Schools and so far it’s been well received.

Talbot County Public Schools has rolled out a brand new bus tracking app for parents, making it a little easier for parents to track their kid’s school bus.

“The purpose for releasing this app is to give our parents peace of mind, to give them another tool so they know where our students are,” explains TCPS Transportation Director Dave Stofa.

It’s called Here Comes The Bus and it’s an app that uses GPS locators to track the whereabouts of each Talbot County school bus.

“What it does is it allows them to see where their bus is and what time their children are going to get off the bus. So we will have more parents at bus stops picking up students and less student returning to schools,” explains Stofa.

It’s an app the county hopes will bring added safety and relief for parents. And for some who are already giving it a try, they tell us that’s exactly what it’s doing.

“It’s great. I can look at the app and I can see exactly where the bus is as it’s traveling from the school to my house. So I can see the whole trip and actually last week we had an early dismissal so the schedule and time frame was different so I was able to just watch and see when the bus arrived home,” explains Debbie Gardner, a TCPS parent and Coordinator of Public Relations.

It’s a great tool for working parents and ones who can’t always be there every time their kid gets on and off the bus, an app that is only used by parents.

“So as a parent you login with your student information and you’ll have a map that pulls up that shows your address and where your stop is. And then from there, you can draw a geo-fence around your stop  and make it as large or as small as you want so when that bus comes in that geo-fence you get a notification,” adds Stofa.

Talbot County already has three elementary schools using this app and they’re getting ready for a fourth school to start using it this week.