With faculty bus drivers briefly provide round Arizona, a rideshare service helps parents transport college students to and from faculty.
TOLLESON, Ariz. — It’s been known as an Uber-like transportation service for college kids, and now, greater than 50 Valley households are utilizing the service, serving to get their kids to and from faculty a bit simpler.
The Tolleson Unified High School district remains to be utilizing the yellow faculty bus, however with this program, they’re in a position to carry in additional college students from outdoors their boundaries, serving to alleviate the college bus driver scarcity.
“The state opened up these transportation, innovative grants, ran by A for Arizona,” stated Jeremy Calles, Tolleson Union High School District’s CFO. “They awarded $20 million out in total for the state, with a max award of $2 million.”
That lead to a serious motion.
“Tolleson got the max award of $2 million,” Calles stated.
That funding has translated right into a pilot program known as HopSkipDrive, serving to kids in particular populations get to faculty in a brand new manner.
“They are homeless or families in transition,” he stated. “By federal law, we’re required to transport them.”
“These are typically really long routes that are outside the district’s boundary,” Calles added. “By moving those over to HopSkipDrive, we’re able to free up some of our drivers.”
Never heard of HopSkipDrive?
“It’s a safe, student transportation solution enabled by technology and powered caregivers on wheels,” stated Miriam Ravkin, HopSkipDrive’s Senior VP of Marketing.
“A school director of transportation has their app on their desktop, and they can see all the rides happening and a parent would download the app in the app store and they would pre-schedule a ride for their kid and then they’ll be able to see once a care driver is en route, picks them up and they can see when the ride is in progress and once it completes,” Ravkin stated.
The program shouldn’t be solely serving to college students get to faculty safely, however it’s additionally assuaging stress on the district, as they work by a vital bus driver scarcity.
“In Tolleson alone, we’ve seen a 10x increase, since December to February in the amount of children that HopSkipDrive is driving,” Ravkin stated.
The program is permitting Tolleson to benefit from the grant and HopSkipDrive to assist much more kids to get to faculty.
“My stepson rides in on HopSkipDrive and we love it,” Calles stated.
Tolleson is considered one of 200 districts throughout the nation HopSkipDrive is now working with.
As for the care drivers- they undergo stringent background checks, together with fingerprinting. They should have at the least 5 12 months of caregiving expertise and a need to assist kids of their group.
12 News on YouTube
Catch up on the most recent information and tales on the 12 News YouTube channel. Subscribe at present.