Superintendent Matt Erickson and Transportation Director Ryan Lyman from Lincoln County School District #2 stepped into the SVI Radio studio on Tuesday, August 26 to discuss the adjustments that were made to accommodate students and families effected by the Willow Creek Fire, as well as ID cards provided to all students while the board and exit school buses.

(0:00) Joining me live in studio is LCSD 2 Superintendent Matt Erickson this morning (0:04) and also Transportation Director with District 2. That’s Ryan Lyman in studio today as well. (0:11) Matt, Ryan, good morning. How are you guys doing today? (0:13) Good morning, Duke.
(0:14) Good morning. (0:14) Doing well. (0:15) Good.
(0:15) Excellent. Well, appreciate you stopping by today. Superintendent, we’ll start with you.
(0:20) Everything’s off and rolling. Cokeville’s even back in school today, by golly. (0:24) Yeah, we’re off to a great start to the 25-26 school year, Duke.
And (0:29) as you just mentioned, Cokeville students returned yesterday. So (0:34) we don’t know exactly on our enrollment yet, but we’re anticipating (0:38) holding about 2,925 students or so this fall. (0:44) Awesome.
Well, of course, there’s always some little wrinkles. You and I were just chatting (0:48) off the air before we went on, but pretty smooth start to the year so far, at least as in the school (0:53) buildings themselves. (0:54) Extremely smooth start to the school year.
And with that, we’d like to thank our people. It’s (1:00) the people that make the difference from maintenance to bus driver to mechanic to food (1:06) service, custodian, teacher, aide, psychologist, obviously admin, secretaries all the way through. (1:15) But we’re just so blessed in this district to have great, great people and to have amazing (1:20) kids and families that we get to serve.
(1:22) We wanted to talk transportation today, and that’s why Ryan Lyman’s here. And some things (1:27) you can plan for, such as reconstructing a bridge, some things you can’t plan for, such (1:32) as evacuations due to a wildfire. So let’s walk through that process, starting with the (1:37) wildfire first.
Obviously, this popped up. No one was really expecting it. You had some (1:42) areas evacuated.
So, Superintendent, let’s get your thoughts on it. And then, Ryan, (1:45) we’ll get yours on how you guys handle a situation like this. (1:49) Okay.
So obviously, we have a lot of safety protocols in place, and we try to plan ahead (1:56) the best we can. A wildfire like that with evacuations, I’ll readily admit that I don’t (2:02) know that we were as prepared as we should have been. But we appreciate the officials (2:07) from Lincoln County.
We had a lot of communication with them, both Saturday and Sunday. And then (2:14) I appreciate Ryan and the district office leadership team. We met over Zoom Sunday evening (2:21) and tried to make some decisions and have some contingency plans in place, not only (2:26) for transportation but food service, you know, to get those kids that were evacuated, breakfast (2:33) and lunches and whatnot.
And then we tried to communicate with all of the families that (2:38) were affected. So one of the things that we’ll be better prepared for in the future, should (2:44) heaven forbid we have another wildfire this close. But one thing that we hadn’t really (2:51) planned for was, what are we going to do should a yellow zone become a red zone during the (2:58) school day? And how would we handle that with transportation in the afternoon? So again, (3:02) Ryan and his team do a great job.
And Nate Westcott is in charge of safety district-wide. (3:09) And so yeah, we’re, we’re always learning and growing. So we appreciate our stakeholders (3:16) and parents being patient with us and extending a little bit of grace.
But I think that in (3:21) specific to the wildfire, things have been handled very, very well. So I don’t want to (3:27) make it sound like it wasn’t a big deal. Because for those families and homes that were evacuated, (3:32) obviously, it is a very big deal.
But now that everything’s starting to settle back down, (3:37) it’s probably good to have, like you’ve mentioned, a real actual run through like this on a smaller (3:43) scale, because it could happen on a much bigger scale in a different part of the district. (3:48) You’re exactly right. The other thing that I’d just like to mention is our counseling team.
(3:54) So Friday afternoon, as the smoke started to barrel up, second day of school, obviously, (3:59) in Star Valley, and we did have a handful of elementary kids, specifically at Osmond Elementary, (4:06) that, you know, could see this smoke, and we’re, we’re a little bit concerned. So we have great (4:13) counselors and very empathetic and prepared for these types of situations. So, so we’ve also had (4:20) our counselors involved in offering services to any kid that would could benefit from those.
(4:26) Also in studio transportation, transportation director Ryan Lyman with school district number (4:30) two, Ryan, what’s from from the transportation department specifically, as you reflect back on (4:35) this, how was the where things handled on your end? Yeah, we just communicated with the county (4:42) emergency preparedness department there. And just to verify, you know, where, you know, on a road (4:51) such as out there on the south end, we it’s obviously kind of dead ends out there. So figuring (4:58) out make sure we aren’t aren’t in their way, have place to turn the bus around safely, still have (5:02) places to pick up students safely and whatnot like that.
So that’s kind of how we approached it. (5:08) Excellent. Now, every the the evacuation part has at least been rescinded, (5:14) rescinded for now still still in a in a ready stage.
But bus routes are running as normal (5:19) currently now. Yep, they are. And one thing that’s we is good for everybody to know, (5:26) and I’m not sure everybody is aware is that students really can get on any of our bus stops (5:31) that are published on our website at the times are published there.
If if, for example, you know, (5:37) in the middle of the night, there’s a there’s an evacuation ordered. And, you know, nobody’s (5:42) nobody’s, you know, awake to figure out what we can do with the bus, bus routes. So then when (5:47) obviously we get we were up early every morning checking things like that.
And if we had to make (5:51) those adjustments, families can know that they can just go to any bus stop, you know, the students (5:56) have their student IDs and scan on any bus. And we still parents will still be able to know which (6:01) bus they scanned on and off of and things like that. Excellent.
Well, I want to talk about the (6:05) student IDs. That’s something that was has been rolling out over the last year or two. But it (6:10) sounds like this year, it’s it’s really going full force.
Tell us what’s happening here. Yeah, (6:15) so every student has a student ID. And they if they happen to lose them or whatnot, they can go (6:20) any of their respective schools office and get a another copy.
And yeah, they they get on the bus, (6:27) they scan their ID and parents can go on on our website and get the app. The app will help them (6:33) with information like where and when their students got on or off. And if the bus is running late, (6:38) where is the bus? When’s the bus going to be here and things like that? Excellent.
And (6:42) where can people find the app? So transportation.lcsd2.org or you can just go to lcsd2.org (6:49) and find transportation. And then it’s right there on that transportation landing page. (6:54) There’s several little short they’re like one minute videos that help you know how to download (6:59) it, how to set it up.
And then it sends a request to us and when then we just verify the information (7:06) through Infinite Campus, which is our student information system to make sure that we’re (7:09) only giving access to authorized guardians or parents for those students. And so you can’t (7:16) see everybody’s students. Obviously, you can just see where where are your students? (7:21) I’m sure that’s one of the big questions up front.
Absolutely. Are people going to be able (7:24) to see where my kids are? Nope. Yep.
And so it’s just and it’s only if a student is on a on a bus. (7:31) So there’s there’s no way for us to tell if a student is over at Maverick or what you know, (7:36) we could tell you if they got off the bus at a bus stop near Maverick. But once if they’re (7:42) not on a bus, we don’t know where they’re at.
If they didn’t scan on the bus, we also don’t know (7:48) that they’re on that bus. And so that’s why it’s important for the students to actually scan on. (7:53) And when they get off, scan off.
And that’s how the data can be most accurate for parents. (7:58) It’s not a GPS tracker, right? Exactly. Just shows you where it was scanned.
Yep. (8:02) Anything else regarding the the ID cards you’d like to mention? (8:06) Not not that I can think of. I think that pretty well covers it.
Okay. (8:10) How about the the narrows bridge construction? I know that’s causing delays everything going (8:15) okay. They’re adjusting some route times.
Yeah, so far so good. It has impacted obviously, (8:20) we were anticipating we didn’t know how what the the volume of traffic was going to be with (8:26) school starting. We didn’t know if there was going to be longer wait times there.
But it seems like (8:31) it’s been about the same. And so yeah, we’re, you know, five five ish minutes is really all that’s (8:37) being impacted. Obviously, that could change if, if traffic volumes change, or we happen to hit the (8:42) light at the wrong time and things like that.
But it we’ve been working through it. Transportation (8:47) Director Ryan Lyman in studio this morning, along with Superintendent Matt Erickson. (8:51) Superintendent, anything you’d like to add to to those comments? You bet, Duke.
I would just like (8:55) to add a big thank you to Ryan and his department. And, and also, you know, just reassure parents (9:03) that with this scanning system, the student IDs, we’re certainly not tracking kids. It’s just a (9:10) convenience and a way to help be more efficient and to for families to know where their kid, (9:16) or at least their ID badge was scanned on and off buses.
And we very much appreciate families (9:23) working with us on that. But again, we’re not tracking kids. It’s very confidential.
And they (9:28) can parents are in charge or guardians are in charge of, of who they give access to on that app. (9:35) So, excellent. And as Ryan said, you can find a lot more details on the website.
It sounds like (9:40) right? Yep, absolutely. Perfect. Superintendent, anything else you’d like to mention in regards (9:45) to district two what today while we have you? We’re just super excited.
And obviously golf’s (9:50) kicked off. But this weekend, football teams from Cokeville and Star Valley get to kick off and (9:56) to the multiple levels and then volleyball as well. So it’s exciting time of year and, and (10:04) we appreciate our teachers and staff and there’s a lot of teaching and learning going on.
So (10:09) we appreciate that. That’s LCSD Superintendent Matt Erickson, (10:13) Transportation Director Ryan Lyman this morning, weekday wake up on SBI radio.