Software solution for end-of-day pickup woes?

[lkramer]

Our school is looking for a new MIS and we've narrowed things down to School Base and iSAMS (I hope).

 

One of the issues we're looking to address is the chaos at pickup time - the reception desk, bus monitors and club supervisors should ideally be on the same page regarding if a child is absent for the day, signed up for the bus or a club, etc. (in other words, we're trying to avoid holding up buses for absent students, or looking around everywhere for a student who just left on the bus!).

 

As I'm sure you know, this is not an easy issue to solve, as bus registrations and absences change by the minute. Our Finance Manager would like the MIS to be able to combine attendance data, transport data and activities data to possibly show monitors where there have been changes, absences, etc. I'm of the opinion that an MIS can't really cope with this sort of dynamic change and that we will have to come up with a hybrid solution (possibly a list of absences, then a platform where we could chat to communicate ad-hoc changes?).

 

I would love to know what your schools are doing to organise the end-of-day madness...do any of you have a software solution in place, or perhaps a custom module on the MIS, or custom reports?

 

Thank you so much for your feedback!

[Katy]

We don't have anything (if they miss the bus, tough, we aren't going to go looking for them) however what you are after could probably be accomplished with a custom SSRS report in iSAMS. Wouldn't be an easy one to write though, try and get some free custom reports thrown in when (if) you buy it and get them to do the hard work!

[lkramer]

Good idea Katy, thanks!!

Do you use iSAMS to keep bus registers at all?

[Katy]

Good idea Katy, thanks!!

Do you use iSAMS to keep bus registers at all?

Not sure... we keep the bus route they are on in iSAMS in a custom field (which is used with a custom report for generating bus passes), I think they print a list off from this but it's just a checklist to make sure they don't get people sneaking on without paying. I don't think they record who got on the bus on any given day back to iSAMS (you'd probably have to set up "bus" as a registration period for that)

[edmokeski]

Try getting iSAMS to let you into their iCommunity site and ask the question there. I can think of at least two iSAMS schools (KES/Stroud in Hants and Habs Girls in Herts) that have mentioned doing something w/ bussing etc..

[lkramer]

Great idea, thank you!!

[jmak]

Is it primary or secondary pupils? At the school my kids attend there's no checking at all. As per @Katy's school, it's the responsibility of the child to get on the bus. They also don't seem to have a problem with getting on a different bus or children who don't have a pass getting on. Works for me as they can go to a friend's house, but not sure whether there are any safeguarding or insurance issues.

[lkramer]

Hi jmak! It's primarily done for the Primary pupils, but on occasion for Secondary as well. It also happens that a parent comes to school to collect a child, but they have gone home on the bus by accident (last minute changes or instances where the teacher was informed of the change, but not the bus monitor), or where parents have signed students up for the bus and an after-school activity on the same day. Partially it's for safeguarding and partially it's to record how many students are taking the bus so that the bus service can be subsidized by the government.