Executives from FedEx will be on hand Friday, September 25, for the afternoon bus dismissal (2:20 pm) of the 529 students disbursed to 15 school districts and over one hundred parent drivers. Press is invited.

Owen, a 5th-grade research fellow last year, wondered if we could use RFID and cloud technology to make dismissal safer and quicker. FedEx volunteered to mentor the project and together “Dragon” (our school mascot) Tags were created, a colorful tag that Kindergarten students wear on their book bags. An RFID reader scans them on the way to dismissal where a display screen announces what bus they should be on or if a parent is coming to pick them up. An additional QR code is visible on the tag that can be scanned by any smart phone. If you have the password, your phone will display emergency information.

“Seven saves so far!” Glorian, a research fellow picking up the dragon tag project and forming with another 5th grader a new programming club around the technology, brags to classmates about the number of times students have been helped by the dragon tags. One Kindergarten student was heading into the bus lane when his tag informed the teacher that the parent had recently called to say he was being picked up. Another student made it to a transfer site where no one was sure on what bus they were to board. The scan brought up the information and she was placed on the right bus. Even the difficult morning procedures at the transfer sites became easier. A sea of new kindergarten students arrived for their first day and school officials needed to separate them. Dragon Tags made the task easier to send on to Baden the students that were enrolled at the school. This task can be very time consuming during those initial days when faces aren’t recognizable and young students are often too afraid to speak up or speak clearly.

Not that the Baden Academy kids are ever not safe. One of the FedEx engineers who accompanied us on one of the research days to track dismissal remarked how impressed he was by how conscientious each staff and bus driver was. The program continues to grow, with students analyzing the data each day and planning to lead the new programming club. The afterschool program for 4th-6th graders will help them understand and make changes to the PHP programming language running the huge database of information. Together, FedEx and Baden Academy are committed to inspiring a new generation of STEM Athletes who see technology as a support and needed assist to the complexity of a 21st-century learning community.