The I-35 split into I-35W and I-35E happens inside this district, quartering it with divided highways — and after three school closures and twenty years of decline, every route is being rebuilt around a smaller footprint.
See it with Burnsville-Eagan-Savage's real routesBurnsville-Eagan-Savage School District 191 — branded "One91" — serves a forecast 6,897 K-12 students for 2026-27 across Dakota and Scott counties, after more than twenty years of declining enrollment. The district has right-sized around it: Marion W. Savage Elementary, Sioux Trail Elementary, and Metcalf Middle School were all closed, and each closure is a full attendance-boundary and route rebuild, not a patch. The budget is balanced partly on reserves, which puts transportation-aid efficiency under direct financial pressure.
Transportation is fully contracted with Schmitty & Sons — the same company that serves Lakeville and Stillwater, though One91 runs a different parent app than either. Families use MyStop (Versatrans My Stop, Tyler), which uses GPS to track all District 191 buses and show route map, approximate location, and estimated arrival; the login is the student ID number with a birthdate password. Notably, the district’s SIS is ParentVUE (Synergy), not the Infinite Campus most of its neighbors run, and yellow assignment postcards have been discontinued in favor of digital notification.
Eligibility is standard-suburban with two twists. Walk zones are 1.0 mile for K-5 and 1.5 miles for grades 6-12, measured — in the district’s published words — as the shortest distance by public walkway, street, or highway to the assigned school entrance, by the district’s computerized GIS map, not a straight-line radius and not the building centroid. All students in grades 9-12 must opt in to receive transportation, framed as a route-efficiency measure; PreK-8 and specialized-transportation families are exempt. A $295 pay-to-ride option is available, capacity permitting, for students who do not otherwise qualify.
This is the densest freeway geometry in the south metro, and it is all §169.444. The I-35 split into I-35W and I-35E happens inside the district; combined with I-494 to the north, MN-13 running east-west through Burnsville and Savage, MN-77 (Cedar Avenue) through Eagan, and US-169 on the Savage side, ISD 191 is boxed and quartered by divided highways where opposing traffic is not required to stop. In a district cut up this severely, "students must never cross a divided highway" is not a theoretical rule — it is the primary determinant of where attendance-area students can be picked up. The Minnesota River forms the northern boundary, so there are no northern route options; the district is a shelf between the river bluff and the southern suburbs.
The district’s walk-zone thresholds sit below §123B.88’s two-mile floor, so it transports well beyond what the state requires — and the entire grades 9-12 opt-in and $295 pay-to-ride structure lives in that discretionary band, which §123B.88’s grant of board discretion makes legal. With enrollment down for twenty years and a budget leaning on reserves, §123B.92 transportation-aid efficiency is under real pressure, and the 9-12 opt-in is explicitly a route-efficiency measure. On County Road 42, Burnsville Parkway, Nicollet Avenue, and Cliff Road at 40-to-45 mph, §169.443’s amber pre-warning distances govern stop spacing.
| The job | Burnsville-Eagan-Savage today | With Guardian Route |
|---|---|---|
| Parent bus tracking | MyStop (Versatrans My Stop, Tyler) — GPS tracking, route map, and estimated arrival; login is student ID + birthdateSee the full comparison → | FamilyView — native iOS/Android app in four languages, onboarded from the roster without birthdate-as-password logins |
| Routing & planning | Tyler Versatrans (the stack behind MyStop)See the full comparison → | SmartRoute — optimization that treats the I-35W/I-35E divided-highway split as a hard crossing constraint, not a manual check |
| Closure-driven route rebuilds | Boundary and route rebuilds after three school closures, planned by hand | What-if simulation on each closure scenario, then re-optimization — with the walker-to-rider and cost impact modeled before the board votes |
| Grades 9-12 opt-in | High schoolers must register to receive transportation; a $295 pay-to-ride tier layered on top | Opt-in and fee-based eligibility are rules in the engine, so routes serve registered riders and the pay-to-ride tier stays audit-clean |
MyStop — Versatrans My Stop from Tyler — which uses GPS to track all District 191 buses and shows a route map, approximate bus location, and estimated arrival. The login is the student’s ID number with a birthdate password. Bus assignments now arrive digitally through ParentVUE and email; yellow postcards have been discontinued.
One mile for grades K-5 and 1.5 miles for grades 6-12, measured as the shortest distance by public walkway, street, or highway to the assigned school entrance using the district’s computerized GIS map — not a straight-line radius and not the building centroid. All students in grades 9-12 must opt in to receive transportation.
The district requires grades 9-12 to register for transportation each year as a route-efficiency measure — if it receives no registration, no bus is scheduled for that student. PreK-8 and specialized-transportation families are exempt. Guardian Route treats opt-in status as an eligibility input so the optimizer plans only for students who will ride.
The I-35W/I-35E split, I-494, MN-13, MN-77, and US-169 are all §169.444 separated roadways students must never cross. Guardian Route’s crossing evaluator treats divided highways as always-prohibited, so the optimizer places every attendance-area student on the correct side of each corridor by construction — instead of catching the error after a route is drawn.
District information on this page is compiled from public sources — district transportation pages, board policies, and news coverage — as of July 2026, and may change. Guardian Route is an independent product and is not affiliated with or endorsed by Burnsville-Eagan-Savage School District 191. Confirm current policies directly with the district.
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