gps/chip in student id's (San Antonio, Howe: insuring, crime, bankrupt)

[mamatotex97]

Students to be tagged with GPS tracking in NISD pilot program | kens5.com San Antonio

[TexasRedneck]

If I had kids in that school, you can bet that I'd find a way to disable that thing. It won't take long for someone to be able to figure out how to "hack" that system and be able to track kids pretty much whereever they go.

Sorry - stay outta my life, Big Brother.

[Merovee]

If it works as stated where it can only track students while on school property then there should be no harm. Saving money for the district is a good idea in the face of the political slashing that was done to the education budget. Ironically those who supported defunding our schools might be the very same ones who oppose this. It is as if they they desire to bankrupt our communities academically insuring our work force remains uncompetitive. Complaining about our schools without proposing solutions and even opposing solutions makes no sense.

Hopefully they make it a crime for anyone to tamper with these cards if the program goes mainstream.

[OaklandR]

Nothing a hammer won't fix.

This is something I don't see lasting long. Too many privacy concerns.

[majormadmax]

Originally Posted by OaklandR

Nothing a hammer won't fix.

This is something I don't see lasting long. Too many privacy concerns.

This x 2. The school needs to do its job and not rely on such tactics to monitor the students...

I can see one exception though, for special needs students.

However, I suspect the real reason behind the proposal is this...

The district loses $175,000 a day in state funding because of tardy or absent kids.

The district bean-counters expect to gain more than $250,000 in attendance revenue from the state, and $1.2 million from Medicaid—because the district will be tracking special needs kids, too.

The do claim that the tags can only track students within the walls of the buildings on campus, or on special needs buses; but as my wife said, what is the school going to do if the students are missing from campus? Track them down? Who are they gonna pay to do that?

I don't see many of the tardy or absent kids being wandering campus instead of being in class, so these are of very limited value and as stated, border on an invasion of privacy. We're talking students here, not inmates on a release program!

Cheers! M2

[Merovee]

As with any new technology introduced to society, it and the rules surrounding it will exist in a state of flux. So when similar programs are introduced in other places some will be nixed while others will continue and be improved upon. No telling which will happen here but with budgetary concerns in the mix I think the tin-foil-wearing cynics won't fare well. This is the city which first introduced TransGuide (cameras on the highway) which the conspiracy nuts also opposed citing privacy concerns.

In the future I fully expect cameras in class in case the parents or the district wish to monitor the classroom.

[majormadmax]

The last thing anyone will accuse me of is being a "tin foil wearing cynic," and there is a huge difference between video surveillance of public areas and tracking individuals. There are still rights in this country, and the motivation behind this is not to better the education levels of the students but to continue bringing in state and Federal money.

Sorry, but such measures weren't necessary in the past; and shouldn't be employed today!

[pfil]

Originally Posted by majormadmax

This x 2. The school needs to do its job...

no offense sir but that won't ever happen as long as there are parents . even worse, parents who were once working for a school's system (ie. subs, low end admins,...) .

we fail to demand our kids go to school each day, we treat schools and teachers like over-paid babysitters; the schools have become a more rigid form of the mall in some parent's eyes .

i say good for this . privacy of a kid ? what rights ? what should i fear ? i'll call up my school and ask, say sport...where's my son ? and the reply will be...well sir, he's 5 feet from his desk, where...he...should...be .

but pfil, i don't want some stranger tracking my kid .
why not ?
what if it's a perv
seriously ?
well it's against the freedoms america was founded upon
well son, we've abused those rights

can we please let the schools turn back to being an institution instead of a recreation ?

[Merovee]

I'd really like to know the vendor who will pilot this program. Aim Truancy Solutions was mentioned in an article regarding the same program in Anaheim. Baltimore is also trying this out.

The article also mentioned it was totally optional so that if parents wanted to opt-out they could.

[Bo]

Wouldn't bother me if my kids' school did this. I get pinged about absences in the evenings (noted by the teacher's attendance roll) when my kids miss a class because they were in another part of the school campus taking AP tests. I'd actually prefer the school reconcile those absences in real time with a system like this than providing me with untrue notifications about absences that they reconcile manually a few days after the testing.

Bring on the RFID IDs!