The Edulog Parent Portal app that Cobb County School District promised would let parents track their children's buses in real time went dark during the first days of the school year, leaving families guessing where their kids were while buses ran as much as 90 minutes late.

Alissa Cassidy, a Cobb County mother of three bus riders, said Tuesday, Aug. 4, in an interview with Atlanta News First that the tracker for her middle schooler was completely unavailable that afternoon. Her child's bus arrived 14 minutes behind schedule.

"What's frustrating is that I can't use the app that is designed to let me see where my children are," Cassidy said. She added that she wasn't upset about the delay itself, calling it a normal first-week hiccup. The problem was flying blind.

Another parent captured a Ring doorbell photo showing her child's bus pulling up at 10:16 a.m., more than 90 minutes after its scheduled pickup time. That parent's name was not published.

The district replaced its previous bus-tracking app with Edulog over the summer, installing GPS tablets on more than 1,000 buses ahead of the Aug. 3 first day of classes. As we reported July 31, the free app was pitched as a major upgrade for the more than 72,000 students who ride district buses daily.

Cassidy questioned the switch. She said the old app already offered comparable features and called the change unnecessary: "If it's not broke, don't fix it."

District acknowledges problems, offers no timeline

A district spokesperson confirmed the technical failures and said officials are working with Edulog to resolve them. The spokesperson said buses continue to operate safely and that the app will provide reliable, real-time bus information once fully operational. The district did not say when that would be.

Paul McKinney, who became the district's director of transportation in June, has not commented publicly on the outages. Edulog did not respond to Atlanta News First's request for comment.

The district directed parents with bus concerns to contact their assigned field coordinator or the Transportation Department.

What's next

The Cobb County Board of Education holds a work session Aug. 11 that traditionally includes a first-day-of-school update. Whether the Edulog outages will be addressed at that meeting has not been confirmed. The agenda had not been posted as of Wednesday, Aug. 5.