TUPPER LAKE — With classes kicking off today, Tupper Lake Central School District parents and guardians have a new tool at their disposal to monitor their child’s safety when it comes to getting to and from school.

TLCSD announced that it was partnering with BusRight, a software company that developed an app for smartphones that tracks school districts’ buses. The information is then relayed in real-time through the app to let parents and guardians know where their child’s bus is on its route, and when they have safely made it to school or home.

Besides the map tracker, the app also sends out alerts when the bus is three minutes from the student’s designated pick-up/drop-off point. This gives families a heads-up when it’s time to go to school or when students will be coming home, according to TLCSD Transportation Supervisor Alysia Hopkins. The app also lets district officials send messages to families on specific bus runs, as needed.

“If a bus was running late or, God forbid, if a bus broke down, we’d be able to just take that bus and send a message saying that we’ve run into a situation and we’re on our way,” she said.

Hopkins said the district previously experimented with other apps, but they had various issues. She added that TLCSD came across BusRight last year and began demoing it. The app proved to be reliable and had a relatively straightforward user experience. Hopkins said the overarching goal was to give parents first-hand information on their students’ well-being.

Safety and security were a major focus for district officials with the app. While it gives parents pickup and drop-off times, it does not include students’ names. Instead, when parents download the app and enter their information, that is relayed to Hopkins, who then is able to match it with students using family contact information that the district independently has.

Once that’s verified, Hopkins sends the parents a unique invitation over the app, linking them to their student’s route, again without attaching any of the student’s identifying information to the route in the app.

“They’ll download it and it’ll automatically — because their child is tagged to a certain (bus) run — show up on their BusRight app,” she said.

Hopkins said the app received positive feedback from parents who were using it earlier this week when the district started its Pre-K programming, noting that the three-minute warning was a big hit. Besides regular bus runs, she said the district plans to use the app for sports runs and field trips.

Hopkins said tablets were installed in each of the district buses that have the GPS tracking system. She said it does rely on cell service, and buses may momentarily display as being “offline” on the app during this time, but should come back as soon as the bus is back in service, with its location updated.

“Once they come back in, it will show that they’ve continued on their way,” she said.

Regionally, Hopkins said Beekmantown is another district that’s using the app.

“It’s kind of a new system that’s growing,” she said.

If parents have questions about the app itself, they should email support@busright.com. Questions about the bus stop or route should be referred to the TLCSD transportation department at 518-359-3322.