HURON — Transporting students safely to and from school can be a nerve-wracking task, and with the Huron School District being “safety first” orientated, a new system called Zonar ZPass is currently being implemented. This is a unique card that students will scan as they enter and exit a school bus, and that data will be recorded and sent instantaneously to the student’s parent.
“When a ZPass card is scanned on the bus it will send the time of the scan, the bus number it was scanned on and the location of the bus at the time of the scan. Each card has a special number that is assigned to one student,” said Kathie Bostrom, Team Leader of Transportation Department.
“The system identifies who is on the bus, in case of any emergency situations and it will also greatly reduce the time taken to locate a student who has been reported as not at their location.”
Rex Sawvell, Director of Transportation said, “We’ve needed it for a long time, especially with our growing ridership. We need a system to locate the students quickly and efficiently.”
The app for the parents is called “ZPass +” which parents will be able to download for free on their phone, and have the option to receive text notifications or emails when a student scans their card.
“All the information is sent to Zonar Secure Software for real time viewing for school administrators, parents and eventually access will be extended to Principals.
“Parents will have to sign up for it and have specific information that only the school or parent would know about. This information will include the ZPass card number, the state assigned student ID number and a password is required. There is no way anybody else could view the student information and activity,” Bostrom stated.

Although this is a much-utilized system in the United States, Huron will be one of few schools in South Dakota to use the Zonar ZPass system. Bostrom said.
“It is a highly used system throughout the country, and from what I have researched, the schools that use it all have positive feedback with their experiences.”
The ZPass cards were issued with all of the information attached at parent teacher conferences, with the parents consent. Borstom said, “Any cards not able to be issued at that time, we will make arrangements to get the cards issued at school in the near future.”
Student safety is the primary factor for bringing the system to use in the school, but there are other benefits also.
“Eventually, once we are further into the use of the system, it will help us with managing routes and knowing where we have overcrowding. It will help us figure out a solution to those issues also,” explained Bostrom. “The main reason we looked into the system is to locate students when parents call or the school calls and says a student didn’t get home. I always said it was kind of like looking for a needle in a haystack in a field full of haystacks, you don’t know where to start, so now we will know where we can go to start our search.”
Although the school is in the early days of using the system, the testing is going well so far and the hope is to have all K-5 students using their ZPasses by the middle of November. Bostrom explained, “We started with the little ones because they are our greatest concern. If all is going well, we may look into going through Junior High next year. We are not closed to the idea that it could even go through twelfth grade. We are going through the baby steps now.”
Sawvell said, “I am excited to get it going, and I think once people see the advantages of it they will see the potential for what it is.”
The transportation department has seen an influx in students being transported, which is another reason to take extra safety measures. Bostrom explained, “We transport around 1,100 students already without the weather getting cold, which is more than we have ever transported before at this time of the year. Approximately 75 to 85 percent of those students are elementary.”
School transportation can get complicated with bus transfer, which takes place at the middle school, where students make a quick change from their first bus to the next. “Our system is pretty unique with the transfer, which can be confusing for a kindergartener who may get off the bus at the wrong stop,” Bostrom said. “This system will solve all of that because we will see where the student exited the bus, and we know where to look for them. I think this is going to be a great way to add more safety to our transportation of the students and give parents peace of mind.”

Photos by Angelina Della Rocco of the Plainsman
Fifth-grade student Griffin Storm scans his ZPass card as he exits a school bus during the daily transfer at Huron Middle School. Storm is one of 19 students included in the testing of the Zonar ZPass system.
Students Henry and Nolan Van Scharrel, receive their ZPasses from Kathie Bostrom, Team Leader of Huron Public School’s Transportation Department at Parent Teacher Conferences on Thursday. This is a mock-up of a ZPass card, a program being instituted by the Huron Public School’s transportation department.