Loss of Privacy

For kids who have four or more unexcused absences, they will now be required to carry a GPS device that will track their movements throughout the day during a six-week trial in the Anaheim Union High School District.

Each morning on schooldays, they get an automated phone call reminding them that they need to get to school on time.

Then, five times a day, they are required to enter a code that tracks their locations – as they leave for school, when they arrive at school, at lunchtime, when they leave school and at 8 p.m.

Students will also be assigned a life coach. The program appears to be a volunteer option to avoiding jail time or prosecution. This begs the question as to how voluntary the program really is.

Story begins at 1:50 and lasts about one minute.

School officials believe the students shouldn’t see this as a punishment, but it doesn’t address many underlying problems that will be associated with the program.

how will this approach help students who are school avoidant because of anxiety disorders or a medication side effect or who are cutting school because they are being bullied or harassed?  How will it help kids who are not getting to school because their parents are disorganized?  How will it help kids who are truant because they are depressed over academic or social failure?

Any child who’s chronically truant should be assessed to determine why they’re truant.

Tracking/check-in systems may work for those who are school refusers because what goes on outside of school is more interesting than what goes on in school, but the approach seems inadequate to deal with the anxious/depressed school avoiders.   Instead of investing in tracking devices, invest in school counselors and assessments.

Instead of looking at the causes of the problem, the school district is only looking at the symptoms, which will never solve the problem of truancy. It will, however, make it appear as if the school is doing something to solve the problem.

On Wednesday night, the Board of Education voted to start randomly drug testing students at Belvidere Elementary School. The school sees drug testing as a deterrent.

“We’re hoping that the students if they’re at say a party or someone’s house or just hanging out somewhere, that they’ll say ‘I don’t want to get involved in drinking or using any drug because tomorrow could be a drug testing day,’” she told CBS 2′s Christine Sloan.

Yes, because if a student goes drinking, I’m sure they’ll show up at school the next day with alcohol still in their system instead of skipping and staying home.

The program is voluntary and both parents and students must consent. School officials said it was important to note that if a student tested positive, they would not be suspended or have the results sent to the police.

Seriously? Okay, this is officially a non-story. If the program is voluntary, it is never going to work. What an asinine waste of school time and money.

A number of parents and students in the close-knit town said they would be signing up for the testing.

A number of parents and students in the close-knit town are idiots, signing up for something that the school district tells them is good for them.

“It takes the pressure off of them that they have an easy out to say ‘no. No I don’t want to do this, I’m afraid I’ll be tested,’” parent and teacher Noelle Kornegay said.

So instead of being responsible, you’re letting kids weasel out of responsibility. This is a great lesson to teach them. It’s someone else’s fault, not mine.

Drug testing is currently mandatory at Belvidere High School for students who park on campus, join clubs or participate in athletics.

So, if you don’t park on campus, join any clubs or participate in athletics it’s not mandatory for you. It is usually the ones who don’t do any of the above who are more likely to do drugs. Again, more of the same uselessness.

Randomly drug testing students for no reason and no suspicion is a invasion of privacy. The fact is, kids experiment. It’s been happening since there were first children on this planet. They’re not perfect. They never will be. By urging your children to sign off on this only prepares them for later in life where they won’t think drug testing as mandatory is a violation of your fourth amendment rights.

These tests merely push students to test legal forms of drugs. It also allows them to seek out new ways to get high from sources that aren’t on the illegal list for their school. Any parent who thinks their child has a drug problem should be seeking professional help. Forcing a child to sign this piece of paper is a waste of time. You don’t need this policy to properly raise your child or get them help.

Hundreds of schools have begun monitoring children in the past few year with the United Kingdom intent on stepping up the pace in the new year. Biometrics and CCTV are the most prevalent with many schools in Scotland planning on introducing or expanding schemes in the coming year.

Read the rest of my latest article at The Daily Censored.

Mayor Menino helps kick off the pilot program for the BostONE card, which would link students’ library cards, BCYF passes and MBTA passes onto one card.

Get them early folks. Don’t let them grow up to think that tracking your every move isn’t normal.

From msnbc news:

In a bid to set parents’ nerves at ease, a southwest suburban school district has become one of the first in the state to begin tracking students riding buses to and from school each day with Global Positioning System and Radio Frequenty Identification technology.

Palos Heights School District 128 had previously been using ZPass, a GPS technology provided by Seattle-based Zonar Systems, to track the buses.  But now the district is outfitting students’ backpacks with a luggage tag-sized unit that logs when the student steps on and off the bus.

And this will surely work because kids never forget their backpacks and always take them home from school. Children will just get a friend to hold their bags, thus circumventing the system. Once the kid gets off the bus, they aren’t tracked anymore. Good luck finding your child then.

For all you parents that worry far too much, stop worrying. Your kids aren’t in any more danger now than they were 40 years ago. Allowing this intrusive crap into your lives only coddles your children into accepting being tracked as normal for the rest of their lives. You’re not helping.