Did your kid make it to the school bus? There's an app for that

Zonar's Z Pass is mostly used in the western United States and keeps track of students getting off and on buses. Parents receive notifications about their children.

VINELAND -- A system that allows parents to keep track of their children and whether they made it off and on the school bus has expanded into New Jersey, with Vineland adopting Zonar's Z Pass this year.

Vineland Public Schools began using Z Pass at five of its elementary and preschool facilities. By September, the district plans on using the service at all of its schools -- with the exception of the high school.

"It helps give parents a peace of mind and know where their kids are," said Joseph Callavini, transportation coordinator for the district.

Z Pass is a product of Zonar, a company that specializes in bus tracking software. The company claims that its product is used on a third of all school buses in the United States and Canada. Zonar was established in 2001 and introduced Z Pass in 2010.

Before Vineland started using Z Pass, the district was inundated with phone calls from parents wondering if their child was on a school bus. The district would then have to radio the bus drivers, relay the information and get back to the parents -- a process that could take up to 10 minutes.

Now, parents can find out the moment their kid gets on and off a school bus with a notification sent in real time to their phone.

"From those schools the phone calls have been, I don't want to say they are completely gone but they have gone down 85 percent," Callavini said.

The Z Pass program outfits each student with a special card. The students swipe their cards as they enter and exit the bus, which keeps track of the students. That information is readily available to the school district and notifications can be sent to parents.

"You can image that a school transportation office is receiving constant calls at the end of each day when the child didn't come home at the right time," said William Brinton, senior vice president and co-founder of Zonar.

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While Z Pass did have some push back when it was first released by parents worried about privacy concerns, parents have since become accustomed to using technology to keep their kids safe.

"That perspective has changed dramatically over the years where it isn't viewed as an invasive technology," Brinton said.

Most of the Z Pass users are in the western part of the United States, closer to Zonar's base in Seattle. Zonar's footprint in New Jersey is less than other places due to the high number of schools that contract their school bus services instead of having them in-house.

Vineland has 175 buses in its fleet and contracts another 100. The district uses Zonar on its fleet buses and, after Callavini researched Z Pass, outfitted the buses for the trial run.

The trial run cost $16,000 to keep track of the students at Gloria Sabater Elementary School, Casimer M. Dallago School, Almond Road Preschool, Dr. John H. Winslow. Elementary School and Max Leuchter Elementary School.

In the fall, Vineland is paying $45,000 to rollout the program in the remaining schools up to eighth grade. The district is not looking at Vineland High School to use Z Pass, due to the students already having cellphones and having more independence than younger students.

Once the system is in place, it will cost between $12,000 and $15,000 a year to maintain, Callavini said.