Superintendent Matt Erickson and Transportation Director Ryan Lyman stepped into the SVI Radio studio on Tuesday, July 28 for the monthly report from Lincoln County School District #2.

Lyman discussed the EZ Arrival app designed to help parents keep track of their kids while they are on school buses and encouraged parents to get signed up before the start of the next school year. Additional details can be found by clicking here.

Superintendent Erickson discussed openings and filing periods for school board and summer projects that are being wrapped up.

The following transcript of the above interview is AI generated. Minor spelling errors are likely to occur.

(0:00) And our monthly report from Lincoln County School District number two this morning, (0:04) Superintendent Matt Erickson live in studio this morning, and he’s also joined with Transportation (0:08) Director Ryan Lyman today as well. Superintendent Erickson, Ryan, good morning. How are you guys (0:13) doing today? Doing good.

Good morning, Duke. Thanks for having us. Yeah, absolutely.

Appreciate (0:18) your time. Thanks for swinging by, and Superintendent, we’ll start with you. I don’t (0:22) want to say it, but under a month ago, and so ready or not, right? It just goes by too quick.

(0:29) If you could give us an extra month or two of summer, that’d be awesome. That would be awesome, (0:33) especially with the temperatures and whatnot that we’ve been having. (0:37) No, you’re exactly right, Duke.

We’re getting excited. (0:44) Sorry about that. My phone’s going off.

Anyway, principals start and the admin team start back (0:51) Monday, this coming Monday, the 3rd of August. And then I think 19 days, teachers start, (1:00) and I hate to say it, but 21 days, students start. So we’re excited.

Well, I know there’s (1:06) some parents that cheer a little bit when that 21 days rolls around. Absolutely. But (1:10) yeah, heading into the fair, and then of course, right after that, school gets going.

(1:17) Any final projects the district’s trying to get wrapped up before students head back to school? (1:21) So Mr. Hicks, his department, the maintenance and custodial staff, they’re extremely busy right now (1:29) and trying to finish up some projects. Some of them have been delayed a little bit, but (1:35) we’re going to be ready to go here in a few weeks. Obviously in Ryan’s department, (1:39) the mechanics are busy and principals have been in and out and class lists and staffing.

We’re (1:47) still looking for one teacher. It just doesn’t seem to slow down anymore. (1:53) Sure.

Well, let’s bring Ryan onto the discussion this morning. Transportation director, (1:57) Ryan, of course, getting students to and from school, all the activities and everything else. (2:03) And what was it, one or two years ago, you had the bus, I don’t know, check-in system, check-in, (2:10) check-out.

I don’t know, for lack of a better word, but we’re talking about that again today. (2:14) And tell us about the easy arrival system that you have. (2:18) Yeah.

So this is just, it’s a ridership program software we use. It helps us (2:26) with just logistics of how many students are on which buses and where the routes are. And it (2:31) helps our substitute drivers have turn-by-turn directions and all of that good stuff.

(2:35) But this parent app allows, and we’ve had a parent app for, like you said, a couple of years. (2:41) This is actually our fifth year that we’ve been having students scan on and off the buses so that (2:47) we know who’s riding the buses. Primarily in the event of an emergency, we know who’s on the bus (2:52) right now and which parents do we need to get a hold of.

But yeah, parents that have been using (2:59) the app, they can use, it is a new app. It’s easy. The letters E-Z, arrival.

They can go on (3:08) the App Store, Google Play, get that. Same credentials though. So you don’t have to make (3:13) a new account.

So if you were using the old app, you can just use the same credentials. (3:17) If you weren’t aware that we had an app, you can get the app and it’s, there’s a lot of, (3:22) we feel like this new app is going to, it’s easier to use and it has more customization for parents. (3:30) So you can find out, like say the bus, you don’t see the bus when you normally would expect the (3:35) bus.

You can just look at the app and be like, Oh, the bus is a minute away. Or if the bus is 20 (3:39) minutes away, that means it’s probably stuck or broke down, which doesn’t happen very often. (3:45) But on occasion, if we have probably more often, we have buses get stuck in the snow.

And so you (3:52) can, Oh, bus is going to be here in a minute. So we’re good. Or you’re expecting your students (3:56) home and you haven’t seen them yet, but yeah, you can find out, you know, what bus they’re on.

(4:01) And we’ve actually had parents call us and say, Hey, my, I just saw my student scan onto the wrong (4:05) bus. Can you, can you, you know, contact radio, the bus driver and have them get on the right bus. (4:09) So it’s, it’s saved us a lot of time.

And I think hopefully a lot of heartache from parents. (4:14) It’s easy to use. And so we’re just encouraging parents to do that.

We can also send messages (4:19) instead of doing a group message to all parents, which can sometimes get annoying. (4:25) We can just send a message to that bus if, if parents are using the app. (4:29) Okay.

Excellent. So, uh, easy arrival letter E letter Z arrival. It’s a Android and Apple.

(4:37) Yep. And it sounds like it’s, it’s a pretty easy setup as long as you still have your (4:40) student’s little ID badge, right? Yeah. You don’t even need that.

So if you’ve (4:44) never used it before, you’ll just put in your email or cell phone or, or phone number, (4:49) email or phone number, and that you want to use the one that you used when you registered your (4:55) student. So it can verify that you are the, the parent or guardian for that student. Cause (5:00) you can’t just go on and look at any student you want to, it’ll verify that.

And it’ll send (5:04) you a code to that either, um, cell phone number or email address. You put that in, (5:10) it verifies that you’re the parent, and then you have access and you can add you, (5:15) your students, and then you can set up, you know, notify me when the bus is a mile away, (5:19) two miles away, five miles away, notify me when this happens, when that happens. (5:22) And so it’s all customized, but if you don’t want to have your phone going off, you can just say, (5:27) don’t send me notifications.

You know, it’s, it’s completely customizable. (5:30) I want to mention something you mentioned there to, uh, the security issue. I know (5:34) when this first started, a lot of parents had concerns over, okay, who’s going to be able to (5:38) see where my kid is.

And, uh, that’s, that hasn’t been an issue, right? (5:42) We haven’t, we haven’t heard of any. Um, and of course, anybody’s always welcome to contact us if (5:47) have any concerns. Uh, but yeah, you, it, it verifies through the, through our infinite campuses, (5:53) the student information system we use.

And so it verifies that you are the legal parent or guardian (5:58) of this student before you can get access to the information. And it’s not like, uh, uh, some of (6:04) these, some of these other apps where you can, um, track via GPS. That’s not what it is.

We, (6:10) we only know where your student is if they’re on one of our buses. So if they’ve scanned on (6:16) one of the buses, and so they, in order to scan on and off the bus, we’ve been using student ID (6:21) cards, or if you had like a, uh, a, uh, screenshot of, of your, of your barcode of your student, (6:28) student number, you could scan that. Now we actually have the opportunity for students to (6:33) just type in their, their number.

And so you don’t have to carry a phone or an ID. If you know your (6:39) number, you can just type in your number quick. And, and so that’s new this year.

(6:43) Perfect. Uh, I see that on the website, transportation.lcsd2.org. You have a lot of, (6:49) uh, frequently asked questions, Q and A’s, that kind of stuff. (6:52) Yep.

Yep. Parents can go there. And if they have any concerns or questions about (6:56) how to use the app or what this whole system is about, uh, they can go on there and of course (7:01) they can call us too.

Perfect. That’s Ryan Lyman, transportation director at LCSD number two. (7:05) Anything else about this app or anything else within the transportation department itself? (7:10) We are, our routes will be updated on, on our website around the first week of August.

(7:15) Uh, we’re working through that right now, just making sure we don’t anticipate any major changes (7:19) though. Uh, it should be pretty darn close to the same stop times as we had last year. (7:25) Parents, uh, maybe new parents, uh, kindergarten parents, you’ve moved into the Valley, uh, that (7:30) website, you can go on, there’s maps so you can see, you know, where, where you live.

And, uh, (7:36) of course you can call us if you have any questions with that as well. Uh, yeah. So it (7:41) not anticipating any major changes or might the stops times may change by a minute or two.

(7:47) Okay. Perfect. That’s Ryan Lyman, transportation director at LCSD number two.

And again, (7:52) you can find more details on the easy arrival app at transportation.lcsd2.org. (7:59) Superintendent, anything you’d like to tag onto the end of that? (8:02) We just appreciate Ryan and his department. They do a great job and, (8:04) and I’d like to mention all of our department directors we just hired. Uh, we’re very (8:10) fortunate enough to get Shelly Balls as our food service director with the retirement of Sue Helm (8:16) and Warren Hicks, obviously in maintenance, and then Kyle Weber in our IT department.

So (8:21) we very much appreciate our, our directors. People should know that they work year round and, and (8:28) there’s a lot of things taking place this time of year to make sure that we have a smooth transition (8:33) into the next school year. So excellent.

We appreciate him. And then Duke, while I’ve got (8:37) the mic, I need to mention that obviously next week, uh, August 5th is the opening of filing for (8:45) school board. And in our district, we have, uh, area one, which is currently held by Tim Tigert (8:54) area two, which is currently held by trustee Lynn call one of the two at-larges, (9:02) which is currently held by Connie day and then area five, which is currently held by (9:08) Dave Jenkins.

So we would encourage you if you live in those areas and have an interest (9:14) to give us a call, talk to a current board member, come check out what’s going on. I know that (9:21) chairman Darnell Simpson, Dr. Simpson would be happy to talk to anybody that’s considering filing (9:26) and that period is open till through the 24th, if I remember right. (9:31) And then strongly encourage everybody to get out to the primary elections.

Uh, early voting’s taking (9:37) place right now. And so, um, in the last, uh, primary election, there was less than a third (9:44) of us in the state of Wyoming that chose to vote. So I would encourage each of us to take that (9:50) fundamental, uh, right and privilege and great opportunity in front of us very serious and (9:57) get out and, and let’s make our voice heard, be involved.

And then Duke, I promised, uh, (10:03) two grandkids, we’ve got a six year old and a three year old with us this week from (10:09) Utah. And I promised them that I’d, I’d say hello to them. So hello to Remy and Coda.

(10:15) Love it. Remy, Coda, your grandpa’s an okay guy. He really, really is a love the shout out.

That’s (10:21) awesome. Uh, going back to, uh, filing for school board to someone do that through the school (10:26) district or how do they file through the county, the county, the county clerk then, right? Yeah. (10:31) But, uh, Mrs. Kleeman, Barney Kleeman’s also, uh, going to have things on our website, (10:36) given directions and, and the form access to the form.

So, so there’ll be multiple ways, but again, (10:42) if anybody has interest, we’d, we’d love to see you file. Perfect. All right.

That’s (10:47) superintendent Matt Erickson, LCS number two and transportation director, Ryan Lyman. (10:51) It’s all part of the weekday wake up this morning on SVI radio.