In hopes of having efficient communication between the school district and parents/guardians, Conroe ISD issued all students a SMART Tag. The SMART Tag is an individualized card that is made for each student, whenever a student gets on or off the bus it is logged. There are some tedious issues it has or will eventually create for the students and those who live with the Conroe ISD.
Having to wait around for the tag to scan builds up traffic. Once getting on a each student must scan their tag and the bus driver must ensure that the students
are getting on and off the bus at the appropriate spot. If a system fails then it creates traffic all around that location. People already must sit and wait for the bus to complete a stop for the safety of the children and on top wait for each student's tag scan and approval.
The money could’ve been distributed onto other educational departments within the school district. On the CISD website to repurchase a card if you have
misplaced it by accident costs $2, now multiplying those $2 by the 71,000 students enrolled at CISD equals 142,000. But if you go to Conroe High school repurchasing a card costs $5 and multiply once again that’s 355,000. That’s more than 6 times the average salary a teacher gets paid working for CISD.
The possibility for hackers to see the routes and drop off times of children is always a risk. All websites and apps have already built some sort of software to
prevent hackers from getting information. Sometimes those firewalls can’t always protect everything so there is a chance of others being able to get access to the routes and their times. The safety of the children is always the number one priority and logging and exposing those times are a tad risky for those with bad intentions.
The idea of the tags is smart but it’s not as important as other issues within the district. Figuring out the correct price for the tags would benefit those looking
online and seeing one price yet being told it costs more at the school.
Written by: Yesenia Bejarano, junior