Where’s your child’s school bus? CMS tracking app rolls out this week

Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools families can start downloading an app that lets them track their child’s school bus.

CMS invited elementary school families to sign up Monday, with middle and high school students waiting until Wednesday to phase in what’s expected to be a surge of demand.

“I have been begging for this for years!” Torrence Creek Elementary parent Monica Museler said after her principal sent out the notice.

Monday’s announcement came just a week or so after the district said the promised October rollout was on hold, giving no details about when it would happen. Officials in Wake County Public Schools said that district, with about 740 buses on the road, said they also had to delay widespread use of the Here Comes the Bus app. They said there are challenges that come with using the GPS tracking app in a large district that sometimes switches out buses for various runs during the day.

Wake started offering the app earlier this school year and already has about 30,000 families signed up.

CMS, which has almost 1,100 buses on the road, is also using Here Comes the Bus. It lets parents see their child’s bus in real time and sends alerts if there’s a delay. Parents can use it to time their arrival if they want to be at the stop when a child is dropped off, for instance.

The app requires an individual student ID to sign up, so strangers can’t use it to track buses.

This story was originally published November 6, 2017 at 9:45 AM with the headline "Where’s your child’s school bus? CMS tracking app rolls out this week."