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Tips & Tricks: Drive Adoption & Use of Parent Communication Apps
Two districts share their best practices to help parents and transportation departments get the most out of Tyler Technologies' My Ride K-12 parent communication app.
W
ith so much information at our fingertips, it’s frustrating when we can’t quickly find what we’re looking for. On-demand access to information is expected for
just about everything — including a student’s school transportation details. Mobile apps for parent communication, such as Tyler
Technologies’ My Ride K-12 app, empower transportation departments to share real-time updates with parents about bus schedules, route changes, and the time and location where their student gets on and off the bus. These apps help parents stay informed, plan their schedules, and eliminate their need to call the transportation department — while simultaneously supporting on-time performance and operational efficiency. But these tools can only solve communication challenges when parents get on board, so how do you get parents to download and use them regularly? Read on to learn about two districts’ tactics that could work for you, too.
A Better Way to Keep Parents in the Know At Sherwood School District 88J in Oregon, the
transportation department was bogged down with parent phone calls — and they found themselves repeatedly answering the same questions. “We're a small district, but we still get a huge amount of phone calls,” said Casey Jebens, transportation director at Sherwood. Burnt Hills-Ballston Lake (BHBL) Central School District in New York was also searching for ways to help parents get the information they needed without calling the
transportation department. “Especially during dispatch time, we might not be able to pick up the phone to give the parents an immediate answer,” said Katria Hitrick, administrator for student transportation at BHBL. To streamline their communication to parents, the
districts launched Tyler’s My Ride K-12 mobile app. Today, about 90% of families at Sherwood are using it and BHBL has cut parent phone calls in half — and the benefits go beyond keeping parents up to date on when the bus will arrive. The app has also empowered the transportation departments to provide clear and timely communication about incidents or route changes during inclement weather. “The parents feel that we've done a better job communicating with them. They don’t have to wait for us to be in the office to answer a question. They can look up a lot of that information on their own in the My Ride K-12 app,” Jebens said.
How to Increase App Awareness and Downloads To achieve their high adoption rates of My Ride K-12,
Sherwood and BHBL leveraged multiple communication channels to spread awareness. That strategy helped them meet parents where they were already looking for information. “It depends on the grade level and the actual families,” said Hitrick. “Some will always go to the website, some will never go to the website. The more ways we can get the information in their hands, the better.” Both districts shared examples of places they got the word out about My Ride K-12, including transportation arrangement letters or emails, ‘Welcome
18 School Transportation News • OCTOBER 2024
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