Client Profile: Township HS District 214

• Industry: School District
• Location: Arlington Heights, Illinois
• Number of Employees: 2,000
• Students: 11,800
• Tyler Client Since: 2003
• Tyler Products Used: Student Transportation, My Ride K-12
• Website: d214.org

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Challenges

District 214 in Arlington Heights, Illinois, offers its students many opportunities for career and college preparedness by giving students access to local college classes, internships, industrial certification programs, and community service opportunities. With so many options for schedule customizations in dozens of locations, the district needed to find a way to not only accommodate but also easily manage the enormous number of possible transportation schedules their students could require.

When schools closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, District 214 saw an opportunity to harness the disruption and implement a new method of transporting students that could better meet their needs. “We needed a way to allow nearly 12,000 students to get to and from their homes and to over 25 program locations for any class period, and we needed it quickly,” said Transportation Supervisor, Nicole Hansen. This new routing system had to be flexible enough to adapt to the daily schedule changes of each student and intuitive enough to train staff easily.

Solution

Hansen and the District 214 team had been using the Versatrans® transportation management system for more than 15 years, and they had seen how Tyler Technologies supported them over the years. It was an easy choice to migrate to Tyler’s next-generation solution, Student Transportation, to meet their new and changing needs. With Student Transportation in place, District 214 created a shuttle-based schedule that served the entire district and identified new shuttle stops that are easily accessible by their students. This new system essentially mimics a standard public transportation structure, using 65 student shuttles to create extreme flexibility. “Student Transportation was a critical tool that enabled us to create this robust system quickly enough to implement in time for the beginning of school,” Hansen said. She continued, “Its powerful routing capabilities are flexible and did not confine us to traditional school routes.”

Additionally, the district is in the process of rolling out My Ride K-12 to parents, students, and district staff to provide transparency on the status of each shuttle route. This mobile app is making it easier for district transportation staff to keep their community members up to date with new and changing routes and stops.

Results

Students and parents alike are reaping the benefits of the new shuttle transportation system. Students can create their own custom transportation schedules without having to alert the transportation office. Throughout the pandemic students used the new transportation system to spend their downtime socially distancing at home instead of having to spend that time in a district building. “[Our] school administration is grateful that allowing students to go home during lunch and study maximizes how many students can attend school in-person while maintaining social distancing,” Hansen noted, “and teachers welcome the opportunity to meet one-on-one with students for extra support throughout the day without worrying about scheduling around the students’ transportation.” With the shuttles running late into the evening, students are also able to attend after-school activities without worrying about how to get home.

With the implementation of their shuttle routes and increasing communication as they roll out My Ride K-12, they are recognizing a reduction in phone calls to the transportation department. Hansen’s staff will now be able to alert the school community of any delays, schedule changes, or alerts so teachers, students, and parents can adjust their schedules accordingly.

Hansen concluded by saying, “Our shuttle solution demonstrates how Tyler enables schools to innovate to meet their unique needs. Tyler products are robust enough to handle traditional district requirements while also enabling districts to experiment, analyze different scenarios, and problem solve unforeseen issues. By carefully analyzing customers’ needs to guide product design and carefully planned implementation and comprehensive training and support, Tyler’s entire business model is designed to give schools the tools they need to excel so their students can too.”