NM school tracking students using RFID cards. So they aren't tracking the buses, they are tracking the students.

New school bus tracking system at Rio Rancho Public Schools

Rio Rancho Public Schools is implementing a school bus tracking system as part of a new district-wide initiative to help increase school safety. Students will be required to use scannable IDs to check in and out through the tracking system while boarding their bus routes.

"It's a tracking system. We want to be able to completely track our students during the transportation process. Essentially, the way it works, when students get on a school bus, they will take their proximity card and scan it onto the bus. This way, we'll know everybody that is on the bus," Rio Rancho Public Schools Chief Operating Officer Michael Baker said.

"When they depart from the bus, they will scan off the bus and, in this way, we know each student that gets on and off the bus and what stops they get on and off the bus. It helps us double-check to ensure the students are getting on the correct bus and they're getting off at the correct stop," Baker said.

"It's not really often that we have to go looking for kids. At the most, maybe one a month. As you can imagine, if you're a parent and your student doesn't get off the bus, especially with kindergarten students and first-grade students, we get really concerned," Baker said. "We want to kind of close that gap with this system. By using this system, instead of taking hours to do this investigation, it should only take us a few minutes."

Baker told KOAT that some schools within the district have received their cards, and the remaining cards will be distributed in the second week of December 2023. The system will go into effect next school semester.

https://www.koat.com/article/rio-rancho-public-schools-bus-tracking/46013159