An 11-year-old El Paso ISD student was dropped at the wrong bus stop this week, his mother says, turning an ordinary ride home into a scramble no parent wants. The boy, identified by his mother as Luke, was supposed to get off at Braden Aboud Memorial Park but instead wound up near Sandoval Apartments. His mother, Deanna Ortiz, says she wants answers and concrete changes to district policy so older students are not left to figure it out on their own.
Ortiz told KVIA that when she contacted the district, she was told that bus drivers stop tracking exactly where students get on and off starting in third grade. That explanation did not sit well with her. "It's your responsibility to keep our students safe," Ortiz said.
District response and new tracking app
In a statement to KVIA, El Paso ISD’s Transportation Services said it is "committed to maintaining the highest safety standards" for student bus riders and that it plans to roll out the Stopfinder app next school year so families can receive real-time tracking and notifications about their child’s bus. The district’s EPISD bus-routes page also lists Stopfinder among its transportation tools and provides phone numbers and other contact information for families with transportation questions.
What Stopfinder tracks and how it works
District procurement documents and a vendor proposal from Transfinder describe Stopfinder as a system that can combine GPS location data, GeoAlerts and RFID swipe information so families and transportation staff can see when and where a student boards or leaves a bus. The vendor proposal on the district agenda outlines a phased rollout and notes that an expanded implementation was scheduled for April 2026.
Parents want policy changes, not just apps
Ortiz said a new tracking app may help, but will not fix what she sees as a policy gap. She says parents want guaranteed tracking and clear reporting procedures any time a child is left at the wrong stop. EPISD reiterates that drivers are required to load and unload students only at authorized stops, and families with concerns are directed to the contact information listed on the district's bus-routes page.
