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Kids Who Skip School Get Tracked By GPS

Posted by Soulskill on from the tag-them-and-release-them-back-into-the-wild dept.

suraj.sun writes with this excerpt from the Orange County Register: "Frustrated by students habitually skipping class, police and the Anaheim Union High School District are turning to GPS tracking to ensure they come to class. The six-week pilot program is the first in California to test GPS. Seventh- and eighth-graders with four unexcused absences or more this school year are assigned to carry a handheld GPS device, about the size of a cell phone. 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."

1 of 515 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Great plan there by jeffmeden · · Score: 4, Informative

    I missed 40 days of school in 8th grade (a personal high point), and I didn't get much better about it during highschool. Now I'm working on a Ph.D. in Neurobiology at a translation research and teaching hospital. I credit my not-being-at-my-public-school for the level of success I've achieved.

        As a parent, it's my business where my kid is. I'll smash that damn device and hand it back to the truant officer on my kid's behalf. Schools have become the Juvenile Executive branch of the government, and it's not their responsibility. "We'll educate you with the information we want you to know, whether you like it or not!"

    Send your kids to private school, or home school them; there is no law that says you have to send them to public school (at least in my state). There are options besides teaching them that its OK to completely disregard authority...