LOS ANGELES, Calif., – HopSkipDrive, a technology company that solves complex school transportation challenges where there is a heightened need for safety, access and care, welcomes the 2025-2026 school year with industry-leading technology for schools, riders and caregivers.

HopSkipDrive is proud to solve school districts’ biggest transportation needs through individualized, specialized rides to school to supplement traditional yellow buses. The company provides access to safe and reliable drivers in small vehicles, called CareDrivers, as well as a substantial supply of wheelchair-accessible vehicles (WAVs) and vetted Rider Assistants. To provide even more personalized, dedicated support ahead of this back-to-school season, HopSkipDrive has also expanded its support teams.

“HopSkipDrive is here to help with school districts’ long to-do list to help students safely get to school on-time and ready to learn,” said Joanna McFarland, HopSkipDrive CEO and Co-Founder. “School districts are adjusting to changing funding models, exploring how transportation can solve chronic absenteeism, understanding how a multimodal mix can increase access, and addressing the rising numbers of students who move frequently or who experience homelessness or displacement.”

Client testimonials, such as one from a Spokane school district lauding “wonderful customer service, and kind and caring drivers,” illustrate why transportation officials and administrative leaders from 10,000 schools across 17 states utilize HopSkipDrive as a part of their student transportation tools. No matter the hour or day of the week, and in as quickly as six hours, schools rely on HopSkipDrive’s signature approach to safety, reliability, and flexibility.

New Innovations Add to On-Time Arrivals Success To-Date

Since HopSkipDrive’s earliest days, the company has considered on-time arrivals key to providing a safe and reliable ride, strategically implementing new technology and processes.

Earlier this year, the company rolled out a new feature to rapidly identify nearby drivers who are able to substitute and fulfill a ride with just a few minutes’ notice if common transportation issues like a flat tire, sickness, or traffic occur. This innovation continues HopSkipDrive’s relentless work to-date to arrange timely rides, and has resulted in a 7% increase in on-time arrivals, with 95% of rides arriving within approximately 15 minutes of the scheduled arrival time.

This and other advancements underscore the company’s commitment to offering the most flexible school transportation options to work towards ensuring students can reach their education goals.

Support for the Entire School Transportation Experience

HopSkipDrive has bolstered the teams and training behind its industry-leading safety measures and innovations for the upcoming school year, focusing on how best to support transportation officials, CareDrivers, caregivers and riders.

School transportation teams can now book a wide variety of transportation solutions using RideIQ, the HopSkipDrive ride management platform. Centralized transportation teams use it to rapidly and seamlessly book or modify rides through the CareDriver network, or to schedule local professionals with specialized vehicles like WAVs. At the school on-site level, staff can utilize Daily Queue’s customized views to see the day’s vehicles’ scheduled arrival times and corresponding details like color, model, license plate and more .

In addition to these features, HopSkipDrive has continued its investment in dedicated support efforts for all users of the platform, with new offerings for riders and caregivers:

● For parents and caregivers: A new dedicated team will support parents in both English and Spanish, who are new to the HopSkipDrive platform, answering questions and providing guidance on what to expect.

● For riders: HopSkipDrive has launched a dedicated rider support line, enabling riders to reach HopSkipDrive’s Safe Ride Support team during a ride if needed. In addition, for riders who need to be met by an adult at pickup or dropoff, the company has launched an enhanced process enabling school districts to designate specific protocols and identify adults to ensure pickup and dropoff are safe and smooth.

These efforts build on HopSkipDrive’s existing world-class support efforts that includes new, specialized trauma-informed training from NOVA (National Organization for Victim Assistance) to enhance the Trust & Safety and Safe Ride Support teams’ work serving students with diverse needs.

About HopSkipDrive:
HopSkipDrive is a technology company that solves complex transportation challenges where there is a heightened need for safety, access, and care. HopSkipDrive is modernizing the $30 billion school transportation industry through two core solutions: a care-centered transportation marketplace and industry-leading transportation intelligence platform, RouteWise AI.

HopSkipDrive’s marketplace supplements school buses and existing transportation options by connecting kids to highly vetted caregivers on wheels, such as grandparents, babysitters, and nurses in local communities. RouteWise AI helps schools and districts address critical challenges, including budget cuts, bus driver shortages, and reaching climate goals. HopSkipDrive has supported over 10,000 schools across 17 states, with over 600 school district partners. More than 5 million rides over 95 million miles have been completed through HopSkipDrive since the company was founded in 2014 by three working mothers.

The post HopSkipDrive Welcomes New School Year with Industry-Leading Technology, Enhanced Support appeared first on School Transportation News.

While alternative transportation providers frequently carry children with medical or behavioral challenges and students covered by the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act, they also have a solid record of coming to the rescue in other situations.

The Louisville High School in Los Angeles does not currently have any students experiencing homelessness or medical issues, but its administrators received word two years ago from the school’s bus contractor that it was unable to cover a route. “We’re an all-girls Catholic school, and enrollment is really important. We felt an obligation to those students, so we were looking for alternatives,” explained Tara Shuler, the school’s attendance manager.

Louisville High belonged to a transportation consortium with other local private schools, which is how Shuler first heard of HopSkipDrive. Louisville, along with its all-boys brother school in Encino, Crespi, opted to retain the alternative transportation company. “We had a lot of cars coming and going on that very first year and had some siblings going to both schools,” said Shuler.

“The drivers are all vetted and background checked, so you know you’re not just putting your kid in an Uber with some random person who decided to sign up,” she continued. “I think that gave our families confidence in the beginning .. and then it went forward with no real hiccups. They were rock solid from day one.”

Noting the school also needs after-school and evening routes, Shuler said the alternative transportation option enabled the school to continue both. “We really modeled it after our buses and it worked out,” she added.

Without the alternative transportation option, Shuler said she believes the school likely would have lost “quite a few kids” due to L.A. traffic. “Parents work so they can’t get to the other side of town and they’re not going to drive them an hour to school and then an hour back to get to work,” she added.

The nation’s leading alternative transportation providers may stake out their own territories or compete head-to-head in places, but they all agree that nothing is more important than safety when it comes to getting students with behavioral challenges where they need to be when they need to be there. A crucial component of managing those students is the recruitment and retention of drivers who share that commitment.

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The alternative service was scaled back last year when the bus company was again able to cover one route, but the HopSkipDrive service was a “nice alternative for us to get our students to school and home safely and not having a bus,” noted Shuler. “It was what we did to fill the gap where we didn’t have a bus.”

She praised the provider for its “phenomenal” communication, calling and texting to share information about a late driver change due to illness, a car slowed in heavy traffic or if there was another issue.

Noting she had worked years ago at Nordstrom’s, a retailer which is known for setting the gold standard in customer care, Shuler said of HopSkipDrive, “They made it so easy to work with them. Their customer service was like Nordstrom’s. There was never any issue they didn’t take care of,” she concluded.

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LOS ANGELES, Calif. -HopSkipDrive today announced a significant expansion in its ability to meet the transportation needs of all students, enabling schools and school districts to seamlessly and directly book rides for students needing wheelchair-accessible vehicles, Rider Assistants, and car seats. With this development, school districts around the country will be able to solve even more student transportation challenges through HopSkipDrive’s unmatched technology-driven safety approach and operational expertise, and can learn more with a sign-up here.

“All children, especially those with disabilities, deserve a safe, reliable ride in a vehicle that meets their specific needs with adults who are fully prepared to support them,” said Joanna McFarland, CEO and Co-Founder of HopSkipDrive. “Rising chronic absenteeism rates make clear that existing school transportation industry options leave behind students with unique needs.”

With more than 5 million rides across 95 million safe miles completed on its platform, HopSkipDrive continues to raise the bar for student transportation. The company supports over 600 school districts by supplementing yellow buses with a network of extensively vetted CareDrivers — local caregivers on wheels — through a care-centered transportation marketplace.

With the launch of these three new transportation offerings this fall, HopSkipDrive will provide schools and school districts with even more resources, all backed by rigorous safety standards and industry-leading Safe Ride TechnologyTM. Transportation teams can use HopSkipDrive’s ride management platform, RideIQ, to easily and simply book, track, and manage all rides in one place, and staff can get full visibility with Daily Queue, which provides a customized view for all HopSkipDrive rides for students at their school location.

Wheelchair-Accessible Vehicles and Rider Assistants

Following a successful pilot earlier this year, HopSkipDrive is expanding the availability of Wheelchair-Accessible Vehicle rides and Rider Assistants to all cities in which the company operates. These rides are fulfilled by CarePartners, local professionals who undergo HopSkipDrive’s rigorous and comprehensive certification process, including name- and fingerprint-based background checks, clearing child abuse and neglect screenings where available, and enrolling in continuous criminal monitoring. Like all CareDrivers, they complete HopSkipDrive onboarding and a virtual orientation course. CarePartner drivers for Wheelchair-Accessible Vehicle rides also undergo driving record screens, vehicle inspections, and more.

To meet the needs of students with Individualized Education Programs (IEPs) and those who thrive most when an additional adult is in the vehicle, HopSkipDrive offers a Rider Assistant for schools to book to join the CareDriver or CarePartner driver on the ride. The Rider Assistant will provide informed and compassionate support for the rider when needed.

HopSkipDrive continues to lead in forward-thinking safety measures by directly managing driver and Rider Assistant vetting, onboarding, and compliance. This unique approach sets HopSkipDrive apart in the student transportation industry, offering schools valuable features such as the Safe Ride Support system and enhanced Must Be Met process to support the development of new rider services all delivered with the company’s signature tracking and notification systems.

Car Seat Program

In select cities, schools and school districts can select HopSkipDrive’s car seat program for students whose height and weight, typically between the ages of four to six, require a car seat. CareDrivers can only opt in to fulfill these rides after completing comprehensive car seat safety education and using only the forward-facing car seat model approved by HopSkipDrive and Safe Kids Worldwide, the leading organization for childhood injury prevention.

HopSkipDrive collaborated with the industry’s leading child safety experts to design and develop the safest possible ride experience. Britney Lombard, who has spent more than a decade as a Safe Kids Worldwide certified Child Passenger Safety Instructor and performed thousands of car seat checks during her tenure, now leads HopSkipDrive’s car seat program. The HopSkipDrive Safety Advisory Council, composed of six leading experts in transportation safety, also played a key role in advising the development of the car seat program to confirm protocols meet the highest standards in the industry.

Compliance is a core principle of the car seat program. Ahead of the implementation of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s new safety standards, HopSkipDrive proactively selected a car seat model that goes above and beyond these requirements in consultation with the company’s expert advisors.

Safety Leadership, Including In-Ride Recording

HopSkipDrive continues to invest in leading the industry in safety with over 50 products, features, and initiatives woven throughout the ride experience. Over the past year, the company announced nearly a dozen new safety initiatives, including offering in-ride cameras through Safe Ride InSight.

Schools and school districts can request dashcam recording for rides with CareDrivers who have installed SafeRide InSight, which combines visual monitoring with audio recording. HopSkipDrive uses this technology along with advanced telematics to create a solution that’s unmatched in the student transportation industry. First piloted in Arizona and Colorado, the company is continuing to scale this technology to additional markets over the coming months.

Learn more about HopSkipDrive at hopskipdrive.com.

About HopSkipDrive
HopSkipDrive is a technology company that solves complex transportation challenges where there is a heightened need for safety, access, and care. HopSkipDrive is modernizing the $30 billion school transportation industry through two core solutions: a care-centered transportation marketplace and industry-leading transportation intelligence platform, RouteWise AI. HopSkipDrive’s marketplace supplements school buses and existing transportation options by connecting kids to highly vetted caregivers on wheels, such as grandparents, babysitters, and nurses in local communities. RouteWise AI helps schools and districts address critical challenges, including budget cuts, bus driver shortages, and reaching climate goals. HopSkipDrive has supported over 10,000 schools across 17 states, with over 600 school district partners. More than 5 million rides over 95 million miles have been completed through HopSkipDrive since the company was founded in 2014 by three working mothers.

The post HopSkipDrive Launches Specialty Transportation, Offering Wheelchair-Accessible Vehicle Rides, New Rider Assistants, and Car Seat Program to Support Entirety of Schools’ Transportation Needs appeared first on School Transportation News.

A webinar discussed how Detroit Public Schools Community District in Michigan utilizes solutions like alternative transportation to combat chronic absenteeism and increase educational access.

Joe Brumfield, vice president of business development for webinar sponsor HopSkipDrive, is a former educator who underscored the importance of school transportation with a story of school bus drivers, “who might as well have been wearing big red capes,” when providing transportation for students displaced from a school that was impacted by the recent fires in Los Angeles County.

“The smiles on [students’] faces within this tragedy was just enough to get us all through,” he shared during the event Thursday. “Transportation is without a doubt the most critical part of the school day.”

Aaron Walter, executive director of transportation for Detroit Public Schools, shared the rampant local poverty levels and how chronic absenteeism was decreasing until the COVID-19 pandemic, when it rose sharply. The school bus driver shortage poses more problems, so multimodal transportation methods in use at the district include school buses, transit buses, taxis, vans, transportation network companies, and gas cards for parents. The options provide the right fits for students with special needs, parents who want more tracking technology, and any other unique requests.

“Without transportation network companies, without HopSkipDrive, we would be hard pressed to figure out how to get students to school right now,” Walter said. “Not every student is best supported by a bus.”

Brumfield referenced bus and staff shortages, budgetary pressures, heightened individualized transportation needs, geographic limitations, inefficient public transportation systems, and more trends reflected in HopSkipDrive’s annual State of School Transportation survey.

He shared that 75 percent of students from socioeconomically disadvantaged backgrounds face chronic absenteeism levels of about 60 percent, compared to a two percent rate for students who attend affluent schools.

“This is really about students who are furthest away from opportunity,” he said. “Without a solution that really talks about multimodal transportation, I don’t see how we’re going to address chronic absenteeism.”

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Walter noted that HopSkipDrive tracks repeated missed transportation pickups so districts can engage with families to learn their needs and ensure their children have educational access. He added that students experiencing homelessness may move around a lot, but the stability of their school, teachers and friends is crucial to their well-being.

For students who are homeless, in foster care, or with disabilities, Walter said that working with HopSkipDrive’s system lets him update or input new information to reroute their transportation vehicle overnight. With parental visibility being so important, bus driver assignments and school arrival notifications are also provided. Brumfield noted that special needs information like a student’s preferred seat, temperature or music can also be provided to drivers and monitors.

Walter said Detroit sends caregivers texts regarding students’ alternative transportation rides, which has reduced calls into the office. Brumfield confirmed that HSD also receives turn-by-turn ride information to take proactive action in the event of a stall or crash.

Both panelists agreed that combining HopSkipDrive’s driver training, driver behavior reports, and student ratings provides districts with helpful metrics and safety oversight.

Walter said Detroit places high value on timely arrivals, as school is likely the first or only place some students receive meals. The missed pickup report is also critical to ensure students are being served and the district isn’t paying for unnecessary services.

Student address and accommodations are the first two factors when deciding what type of vehicle is needed to transport them, Walter said. Legalities must be considered, such as whether a student is the right height and weight to sit in the front seat of the vehicle. Athletic trips, dual credit classes at colleges, and other unique requests must also be fulfilled. In the interest of efficiency, HopSkipDrive can schedule single or recurring trips based on optimized student schedules and needs, Brumfield stated.

Detroit doesn’t transport to schools of choice but will provide transit bus passes, set up different school bus stops, and otherwise work with families. Walter said good relationships with the special education and homeless departments are important in finding solutions that work for everyone.

Watch the webinar on demand. 

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