This episode of the Tyler Tech Podcast features Erin Sweeney, routing specialist for West Ada School District in Idaho, sharing how the district modernized its student transportation operations to improve safety, efficiency, and communication. Erin discusses West Ada’s shift from paper-based processes to real-time ridership insights, the adoption of tablet-based navigation for drivers, and the impact of accurate scan data — including locating a missing student within minutes. The conversation highlights how technology, teamwork, and data-driven decision making helped West Ada earn a 2025 Tyler Excellence Award. Tune in to learn how modern tools are transforming school transportation and strengthening trust within communities.
In this episode of the Tyler Tech Podcast, Erin Sweeney, routing specialist for West Ada School District in Idaho, shares how the district transformed its student transportation operations — a journey that helped earn West Ada a 2025 Tyler Excellence Award (TEA).
Recorded live at Tyler Connect 2025 in San Antonio, the conversation explores how the district overcame long-standing challenges with student ridership data, route planning, and communicating with families. Erin details West Ada’s shift from paper-based processes to real-time ridership insights, empowering staff to improve efficiency, streamline routing, and strengthen safety across the system.
From tablet-based turn-by-turn navigation to more accurate ridership tracking, Erin highlights the technology and teamwork that have helped West Ada better serve students and parents. She also shares a compelling real-world example — using scan data to locate a missing student within minutes — that demonstrates the critical impact of having timely, accurate information.
Whether you support school transportation, manage district operations, or lead public-sector innovation, this episode offers practical lessons on data-driven decision making, improved communication, and modernizing essential services to build trust within communities.
This episode also highlights the Tyler Excellence Awards, which celebrate public sector organizations using Tyler solutions to make a meaningful impact in their communities. Apply now at the link below!
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Erin Sweeney: When we found out this kiddo was missing, we were able to see where they got off the bus. We sent our community members from our school district over to that area, and we were able to find that kiddo in a matter of minutes.
Josh Henderson: From Tyler Technologies, this is the Tyler Tech Podcast where we explore the trends, technologies, and people shaping the public sector. I’m your host, Josh Henderson. Thanks so much for joining us.
In this episode recorded live at Tyler Connect 2025 in San Antonio, we’re joined by Erin Sweeney, routing specialist for West Ada School District in Idaho, one of this year’s Tyler Excellence Award winners. Erin shares how West Ada tackled the challenges of student transportation head on, from improving ridership data to building more efficient routes and enhancing communication with families. Together, we discuss how technology and teamwork are helping districts like West Ada make school transportation safer, smarter, and more connected for their communities.
Let’s dive in.
Alright, Erin. Welcome to the podcast, and congratulations to you and the West Ada School District on your Tyler Excellence Award win.
Erin Sweeney: Thank you so much. We’re excited to be here.
Josh Henderson: Great to have you here. First off, can you tell our audience a little bit about yourself, your role at the district, and maybe a little bit about the community your part of there in Idaho?
Erin Sweeney: Sure. My name is Erin Sweeney, and I work for West Ada School District. I’m one of the routing specialists, and we have an amazing transportation team.
I’ve been with West Ada for about three and a half years, and our community is amazing. We have a really vast community of lots of different ethnicities, lots of different cultural statuses, just so many different people, and it’s just an amazing community.
Josh Henderson: That’s great. Now let’s start with where the school district story began. So before implementing these solutions, what were some of the main challenges West Ada faced when it came to student ridership data and route planning?
Erin Sweeney: Student ridership data has always kind of been a thorn in our side. Trying to figure out how many kids are on the bus, where they’re going, where they’re coming has always been tricky.
Trying to get that data, it’s something we legally have to have in there for this state and getting that data was relying on the bus drivers who already are watching up to seventy two kids on their bus. And so, for them to have that extra stress of writing down how many rides each day and you know, where they’re going, where they’re coming from, has just been really hard for them. And so, for us to obtain that information, it was just pen and paper. They would tell us who’s riding, we would add it in there.
And then you know, suddenly someone moves and they’re in the walk zone. Well, we still have them riding the bus but they’re not actually riding. So that’s really one of the biggest hardships we had starting out. We are a big district and so we have approximately twelve thousand kids that ride.
And so that’s kind of hard to figure out who’s where.
Josh Henderson: Yeah, a lot of logistics planning, it seems. Yes. So how did those challenges impact your operations, you know, whether it was day to day route management, communicating with families, or ensuring student safety along the way?
Erin Sweeney: A lot of that was impacted, so knowing where our kids are and making sure they’re safe is our number one priority. God forbid something happened, we need to know who those kids are on that bus, what families to notify, you don’t want to be notifying wrong families, You don’t want to be leaving a family out. As a parent, that’s just something that we felt we needed to get.
You know, as a parent and as a community member, you just need that information.
And so, for us, it’s just been really huge trying to get that information. And then getting that out there to the parents, they’re so much more responsive knowing that they can get that information as well.
Yeah. It seems more of a recent I don’t want to call it a phenomenon, but more of a recent thing that parents ask for is this, you know, up to date information on, you know, where’s where these kids are, and it makes sense with the technology
That we have available to us now that something like that would be and the world is different too.
Josh Henderson: Yep. Now to that point, when you decided to take action and work with Tyler on a on a solution, what were the goals for improving your transportation operations, and what did you hope to achieve with the solution?
Erin Sweeney: I would say that our goals were to know who was riding our buses and when, know where they’re going, where they’re coming from, be able to communicate with parents better, not trying to figure out by calling out to the bus and asking if a student is on there. It’s something that takes a while. And if you have the potential for a missing student, someone doesn’t know where their kiddo is, that, those couple minutes, they’re forever for those parents. And that’s stressful. It’s stressful for everyone involved, from the dispatcher to, you know, people routing like us, the parents, the drivers, it’s just really hard. So, our goal was to try and get that solved, and to figure out how we can figure out where our kiddos are and create a schedule for them. And so, when we were looking for products, that was our main goal, was just to get something that worked simultaneously, worked well, worked smooth, and helped us get all that information.
Josh Henderson: And I imagine too, sometimes there are challenges involved with getting these types of things implemented, and people bought in on the implementation and the solutions themselves. But I imagine working with school districts, it might make things a little bit easier because you have that community support and that, like, parents obviously want to know where their kids are. How can we ensure that we have the right thing in place to let them know where their kids are? That seems to be, like, an added benefit, it seems.
Erin Sweeney: It’s definitely an added benefit. We had some struggles in the beginning, but everyone really bought into it quick and saw how amazing it is for our community.
Josh Henderson: That’s great. And let’s talk about those tools themselves then. How has the technology changed the experience for, you know, for the drivers, for one thing, and how has it improved real time data collection for your team?
Erin Sweeney: So, for the drivers, the biggest change for them is they used to have paper routes.
It was literally stapled together at the top. I was a bus driver at one point and a dispatcher, so I kind of have that background as well. And so, you’re literally trying to monitor the bus, make sure the kids are doing okay, they’re staying in their seats, and you’re flipping the pages to see where you’re turning next. It’s a lot, and you’re just trying to maintain that with the sun in your face, and you know, and just checking to make sure everyone’s safe.
And so now they actually have these tablets that it tells them turn by turn where to go. Our district has set it so that the drivers can’t touch it during the time that they’re driving. But when they do stop, it opens up and shows them some more information, but they get turn by turn directions. So, I feel like we’ve really made a huge impact for our drivers.
I think that would be huge. I personally haven’t driven a bus with it on there yet, but I know that it would be amazing. And we’re getting a lot of good feedback from our drivers.
Josh Henderson: Stay tuned. We’ll be right back with more of the Tyler Tech Podcast.
Jade Champion: Hey, podcast listeners. We’re here to celebrate the remarkable work happening across the public sector.
Josh Henderson: That’s right. Each year, the Tyler Excellence Awards recognize organizations using technology to make a real difference in their communities.
Jade Champion: From improving efficiency and enhancing engagement to expanding access and transparency, these stories show what’s possible when innovation meets purpose.
Josh Henderson: We’ve seen some incredible results. Agencies turning data into insight, streamlining services, and strengthening trust with residents.
Jade Champion: Now it’s your turn. The Tyler Excellence Awards will be celebrated in April at Connect 2026 in Las Vegas, and applications are open now.
Josh Henderson: If you’re a Tyler client driving positive change, we want to hear your story. Apply now at tylertech.com or at the link in our show notes.
Jade Champion: Because when technology empowers people, that’s excellence worth celebrating.
Josh Henderson: Now let’s get back to the Tyler Tech Podcast.
How has customized routing helped your district better serve students and families?
Erin Sweeney: So, our district’s pretty amazing. We do a lot of different programs. We have our gifted and talented kiddos, and for the longest time, they were not going they would go to their homeschool, and then they would get shuttled over, sometimes every day, sometimes just one day a week, depending on their grade and depending on their level of need. And so, we had all these shuttles going, and then we also have our CTE program, which is career training, where kids can go to another school and get hands on training with welding, diesel engines, cafes, cooking, so many things.
And our district is amazing empowering the kids with all this knowledge. So now we’re able to build a schedule and know where these kids are at any time of day.
We can actually look up and see that, you know, Timmy’s actually on his way to a welding class. And so, it’s super helpful.
That has made such an impact for us and for everyone in our community. And so that to us has just been just profound. It’s just an amazing thing for us to be able to have.
Josh Henderson: That’s so great to hear. And now, you know, once you had that better data in place, how did that shift the way your team made decisions along the way, and what are some examples of how data driven insights have improved service reliability and efficiency for your team?
Erin Sweeney: Now that we have all that data, and I know you asked me a minute ago and I forgot, the data actually, we can get that data immediately. So once that bus is in motion, we’re able to see the kids have scanned on, and so that’s pretty incredible for us. And so, if we have a lost student, we can find them right away. We know where they are.
So that kind of data has really helped us. So, from a routing standpoint, we’re able to see where these kids need to go, and we’re not just guessing. Before, we would kind of assume how many kids we’re going to be riding, so we would overload our buses, because we had to. So, we would have it set to like ninety kids, even though seventy two is capacity, and then we would see how many started riding, and we would have extra buses that would run help out where needed, or we’d find we only had three kids on a bus, and we needed to readjust.
So now having all this data right at our fingertips, we’re able to route so much better, we’re able to create these much better routes and be more efficient, where our efficiency has gone through the roof.
Josh Henderson: I’m wondering too, from the student’s perspective, how do they how do they responded to the technology being implemented?
Erin Sweeney: It depends on their age. So, the younger kids and the special needs kids, they are so excited to have the badges. What our school does for safety is we actually put them on a lanyard, and we put them on their backpacks. So, as the kids get on, they just swipe on their badges, and they think it’s so cool.
It makes a little noise that actually sounds like when Mario gets a coin. So, you hear this little ding like that, and the kids have all related that sound. It’s kind of funny. Yeah.
So, when we’re watching videos of things, we always laugh because we’re like, someone’s watching a video, I hear the Mario coins. So, the kids, the little kids love it. The older kids, they don’t seem to care.
The middle school kids, they’re middle school kids. They fight it a little bit. They’re kind of, you know, can I get past the driver without scanning? We see that a little bit, but everyone’s pretty much been on board, and they know that they have to do it. So, they haven’t really pushed back much.
Josh Henderson: Sounds like when I was back in school and there were the older kids are always too cool for school, right?
It’s just how it is. It’s how it goes. Now if you were to offer some advice for other school districts or public sector organizations facing similar challenges, what advice would you share based on the experience that you’ve had?
Erin Sweeney: I honestly would say to jump in, look at what you can get, see how you can better help your community, and see what you can do. We’re able to make these routes and custom to exactly our needs. So being able to have all these programs we take our kids to is just amazing. And being able to have that info at our fingertips, it just, it really helps a lot.
It helps with data catching, it helps with ridership count, it helps with our state load counts, it’s just amazing. And honestly, for the community, we had an instance where we had a lost kiddo, and that is the nightmare when you can’t find a child.
And 99% of the time everything’s fine. You know, the kiddo got on the wrong bus or whatever, but we had an incident this year where a little kid had gotten on a bus, somehow got by without the driver realizing they were on the wrong route.
I think it was a sub driver, but anyhow, they had scanned their badge. When we found out this kiddo was missing, we were able to see where they got off the bus. We sent our community members from our school district over to that area, and we were able to find that kiddo in a matter of minutes. It didn’t take a half an hour.
Before, we would have to make sure that bus is pulled over, checked for students, because sometimes the kids are little, and they’re scared. They don’t know, you know, what to say, and so a lot of times they don’t. And so being able to find that kiddo was like the moment we were like, wow, this was the right decision. We found that kid fast.
And so, we learned a lot from that experience, and that also showed our drivers how important it is to make sure that you get a green light every time a kiddo comes on and make sure they’re where they need to be.
Josh Henderson: So beyond, you know, efficiency gains, you’re also improving on safety.
Erin Sweeney: It’s really helped us with efficiency, and it’s really helped our community. And just the safety aspect of it really kind of nailed it home for us.
Josh Henderson: That’s amazing. Erin, thanks so much for sharing your story with us and for, you know, congratulations again on being recognized for the Tyler Excellence Award.
Erin Sweeney: Thank you. We have an awesome team.
Josh Henderson: It sounds like it. Yeah. So glad to talk to you today.
Erin Sweeney: You too. Thank you so much.
Josh Henderson: As we heard today, improving student transportation is about more than buses and routes. It’s about empowering districts with the data and tools they need to keep students safe, families informed, and operations running smoothly.
Erin shared how West Ada School District is using technology to strengthen efficiency, communication, and trust within their community. And that very innovation is what helped earn them a 2025 Tyler Excellence Award.
If you’d like to learn more, check out the show notes for additional resources, and we’d love to hear your feedback.
Fill out the listener survey linked in the notes or reach out anytime at podcast@tylertech.com. Be sure to subscribe, rate, and review the show so you never miss an episode. For Tyler Technologies, I’m Josh Henderson. Thanks for listening to the Tyler Tech Podcast.