One of the goals set forth by the Park County School District 1 transportation department last year was to improve communication with parents.

Starting in 2027, a new tool will accomplish that goal.

All buses within the district will be tracked with BusRight beginning Jan. 1, allowing parents to check stop assignments, receive updates and track bus locations in real time.

BusRight is invite-only, meaning access to information it contains is restricted to users authorized by the district rather than being publicly accessible. BusRight will also serve as the primary route manager for the transportation team and drivers, with Transportation Supervisor Stephen Janes remarking about how quick and streamlined the process is with the new software.

The department published its annual year in review for the 2025-2026 school year following the most recent school board meeting, during which Janes updated board members on both last year and what to look forward to in the new school year.

Bike safety was another major concern Janes raised in his report to the school board. New bike and e-bike restrictions were placed by the city in March, prompting the transportation department to practice more bus safety drills and construct two new bike trailers for storage.

“It’s caused a lot of concern with the bus drivers because when you’re up here and you have bicycles and scooters running in front of you, it gets kind of scary, especially when you’re pulling into the middle school or somewhere else,” Janes said.

Janes also talked about the proliferation of stop sign violations, both in school zones and during route stops where the bus stop arm is extended.

“It seems like people are just distracted on their phones and not paying attention," he said. "A stop sign means stop.”

He also spoke about their work with law enforcement in issuing tickets to offenders by using cameras mounted along the side of the bus.

“They show a pretty good picture of the person," he said, adding, "There were quite a few citations written last year and a lot of warnings given.”

The year began eventfully enough with a collision between bus 13 and a passenger vehicle striking the bus just behind the driver’s seat. The collision occurred on Coulter Avenue at the beginning of the last school year, causing around $15,000 in damages. Although there were no children on the bus, Janes said that the event was a learning experience for the department.

Despite the collision, the rest of the school year was relatively uneventful in terms of repairs and replacements. Much of the effort has been placed in windshield repairs as the miles and last few rounds of chip sealing took their toll. Other areas of upkeep include replacing brakes, charging air conditioning systems, alignment checks and new products for clearing out the emissions systems.

“I don’t want to put any kids on them until I feel comfortable that they’re going to make it there and back,” Janes told the school board.

He also cited a mild winter contributing to a less taxing maintenance situation across the district’s fleet.

In total, the fleet clocked in 427,771 miles across the school year. 224,486 miles were attributed to route driving, 107,992 miles for activity trips, 41,621 for staff trips, 28,128 miles in maintenance trips and 25,128 miles for student field trips.

While the department has been proactive in meeting its goals, Janes noted the challenges this coming school year brings from the route driver shortage to the heavy mileage in store for upcoming activities trips.

“Weather is always an unknown,” Janes said. “We’ll continue training on how to resolve issues that we ran into the previous years, reduce accidents, and keep focus on the here and now.”