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Students and Bodies Tracked Via RFID Tags
AT writes "The Brittan School District in Sutter County, California, is requiring students to carry RFID-tagged identity badges on them at all times. Readers are currently installed at the doors to all classrooms. Readers were removed from bathrooms when parents protested. The school district is meeting next week to consider parents objections to the system." Relatedly (but not), Leilah writes "The University of California is considering using RFID tags or bar codes to help track their collection of bodies and parts. They are attempting to reopen their body donation program which has been on hold since spring 2004 due to disappearing parts - they've previously had legal trouble over improper disposal as well."
Readers were removed from bathrooms when parents protested
They must have forgotten about those RFIDed toilet paper. Someone I know received a $94 invoice for "Excessive use of toilet paper" from her son's school.
Seriously though, tracking body parts is fine since they're donated "inventory", but tracking a human is a different matter entirely.
And I'm not going to make a joke about the ease of transition from that school to the university.
Rock that crushes, Paper & Scissors that don't matter.
Parents are no longer on the side of teachers and the administration. It is a battle with the parents believing that their child can do no wrong and everyone is out to get that child.
That is because school administrators and teachers are losing their fucking minds.
Today you have kids getting suspended for having nail clippers. A kindergarten kid was punished for wearing a halloween costume that consisted of a fireman with a plastic axe. 3 kids were punished for possessing pornography because they had a drawing of a stick figure with breasts and a penis.
When I was a kid, if I was in the wrong my mother woudl have my ass in a blender. If I wasn't wrong, my mother would raise hell at the school.
If the school admins weren't such asshats, the parents wouldn't need to be so adversarial.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
OK, I'll tell you what. I'll pull my 98 Explorer with 90,000 miles on it up to the nearest emissions testing station, in any condition you choose (hot, cold, whatever). You pull up in your non-catalytic equipped, reasonably similarly engined vehicle. We'll put $500 apiece down, least emissions takes all. Are you willing to take that bet? 'Cause I'm willing to take your money.
And the worms ate into his brain.
No, they can't. But they can make expulsion the penalty for giving away/trading your badge. Then you'll have to go to a different school, presumably one without tracking devices. Mind you, the buses won't get you if you're outside the school's district, so you'll have to get a ride or drive yourself there.
If you can't get to a different school, you and your parents will be called to appear in court and explain why. Unless the reason is provably medical or financial, you will then be ordered to attend school. This order does not mean you will be re-admitted to your own school again, it means you have to find a way to get to some school that will accept you from outside its own district. In addition, the state will fine you (and your parents) and assign you (and your parents) community service.
If you fail/refuse to do this, you will face further fines, more community service hours AND you will be forced (as in police coming to your house and physically carrying you if neccessary) to go to a special truancy school filled with recovering druggies, violent kids undergoing therapy, and anyone who doesn't (or can't) conform to "the system" at their own expense.
Peaceful protest is always an option for a student. Unfortunately, the consequences are unpleasant not just for the student but for his entire family. Your best bet is to attact a lot of media attention while going through the process outlined above. Public outcry usually gets some kind of action taken.
You might be able to fight the tracking system if you can pass off your refusal to use it as a "free speech" right, but don't bet on it. Read up on "Tinker v. Des Moines (393 US 503)" if you're interested in this.
End of lesson. You may press the button.
"What do you teach children when you have to tag them and constantly monitor all their activities?
That you don't trust them."
Thank you! I was hoping someone would say that.
Indeed, put yourself into a kid's shoes... well, actually, the grandparent poster didn't seem to have any concern for the feeling of violation a kid may feel at this. The ends, for him, seem to so justify the means, that anything ill about those means seems not to exist.
The general disregard for the rights, ideas, and opinions of kids is what pissed me off most about being one. No matter how smart you are, no one wants to listen to what you have to say until you're eighteen, or more likely twenty-one. If you're a kid with a talent, you're the monkey in somebody's sideshow, fodder for talkshows, political photo-ops, or slow news day "human interest" pieces.
Setting that diatribe aside, though, and going a bit more in depth on one of the parent poster's points:
"They never learn to be trusted, thus either will rebell even more than the kids of today or become complacent slaves to society"
They will not become slaves to a society that isn't constantly watching them. What lesson should be taken from being tagged and monitored than that one should behave while being watched? If one is never not watched, can one learn that one should follow the rules then too? When would that lesson be learned?
Society works through the often tacit agreement of the people in it to follow certain guidelines at all times, with the knowledge that, for most of that time, they won't be near anyone who can enforce those guidelines. Most of the time you can probably get away with crossing a double yellow line. Most of the time you can get away with stealing someone else's stapler. Most of the time you can sneak into someone else's yard and use the pool. We don't need to be constantly under surveilance, though, because most of us do agree to this social contract.
The term "social contract" brings up another of the parent poster's points(and one that has been brought up before): trust. Drafting a contract in business requires good faith on both sides. Good faith... trust. The social contract requires no less. The tagging of these students shows a lack of that faith.
This is my sig. It's prescription, I swear. I need it for reading things... on the other side of things