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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."

15 of 515 comments (clear)

  1. Great plan there by Drakkenmensch · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Because kids who regularly skip school can be relied upon to willingly cooperate in keeping and activating their own personal tracking device.

    1. Re:Great plan there by veganboyjosh · · Score: 4, Insightful

      This was my first thought as well.

      1. make friends with truants.
      2. collect their GPS devices.
      3. enter codes when called to do so.
      4. profit.

    2. Re:Great plan there by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Why do they have to do it at 8:00pm? That seems like a really dumb time; its none of the school's business where the student is at 8:00pm.

      Four unexcused abscences seems a bit of a low bar; I know my daughter has they many just due to custody hearings this past fall when her mom tried to get her back.

    3. Re:Great plan there by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      4 UNexcused are quite different than your daughter's excused absences.

    4. Re:Great plan there by rsilvergun · · Score: 3, Insightful

      It's not about learning, it's about training kids to be profitable worker bees. High attendance rates in school train them to come to work on time every day. When company's can count on 100% attendance they can hire less employees because they don't have to worry about covering shifts.

      --
      Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
    5. Re:Great plan there by khallow · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Overall, the high school I recall was more burdened with bureaucracy than any corporation I've worked at since.

      They have to be in order to evade any shred of responsibility for their actions. If they didn't have rigid rules on what counted as an excused absence or not, then they might have to make a decision and that could be inconvenient or even cause them trouble.

  2. Conditioning by betterunixthanunix · · Score: 5, Insightful

    All this will do is to condition these children to accept invasive tracking and surveillance. This is not a question of children's rights, it is a question of what those children will think is normal or acceptable in a decade, when they are adults.

    --
    Palm trees and 8
    1. Re:Conditioning by garcia · · Score: 4, Insightful

      You're joking right? Those students who do this are already truants. They have little interest in actually responding properly to authority and I'd be absolutely and utterly shocked if, in a decade when they're adults, if they have any more respect for the laws of society.

      I am not saying it's not an invasion of privacy, it is, but those outfitted with these tracking devices aren't exactly the types you're making them out to be.

  3. Training for the future by ATMAvatar · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This, like so many other school programs, is an egregious violation of the students' rights. Yet, we allow it under the all to used "think of the children" guise. What it really results in is a bunch of people who are trained from childhood that violating their rights is OK if the right circumstances present themselves.

    --
    "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
    1. Re:Training for the future by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      "It can hardly be argued that either students or teachers shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate."
      -- Justice Abe Fortas, in Tinker v. Des Moines, 1969.92

      But, apparently, they do shed their right to privacy.

    2. Re:Training for the future by Eevee · · Score: 5, Insightful

      From the fine article

      Students and their parents volunteer for the monitoring as a way to avoid continuation school or prosecution with a potential stay in juvenile hall.

      So this is to keep children from getting in legal problems. It's not all kids, just those at risk of getting dragged into the court system.

      Police Investigator Armando Pardo reminded parents that letting kids skip school without a valid reason is, in fact, a crime.

      The entering of the codes isn't just to verify the child has the unit, but also to assist them in planning to get to school. (8PM code entry? Reminder to get stuff ready for the next school day.) In addition, it involves coaching the children to work on their attendance habits.

      So it's voluntary, has less impact on the students than the alternatives, and is designed to work with the students to improve their performance. Yep, that sounds like a violation of their rights.

    3. Re:Training for the future by value_added · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Students rights? Seventh and eighth graders don't have or need rights.[1]

      Instead of asserting that students of that age should be making their own judgments (the consequences of which only an adult could appreciate), I'd suggest we ask why it is that a child isn't doing what they were TOLD TO DO (by either or both their parents and the school).[2]

      The problem, as I see it, is a lack of parenting. The excuse (parents are routinely too busy, overworked, and stressed) may have widespread appeal, but it's a lousy excuse. We've all heard that the best indicator of a child's success is a talented and qualified teacher, right? What's missing from that statement is the qualifier "outside the home".

      Combine lousy parenting with a convenient excuse, and you've got the present day situation in which the responsibility of parenting has shifted to the school. The school, of course, deserves its own excuse (we're too overworked, too underfunded, etc.), so it should come as no surprise that some schools would seek out a technological solution.

      So, yeah, it is (and is supposed to be) about thinking of the children. The problem in this case, however, is that a technological solution cannot possibly solve what's really a social problem. To the extent it can help, I'm all for the idea of electronic monitoring for problem cases, as absurd as it is. A better approach, the best approach, would be for the parents to start being parents and get involved.

      ------------------
      1. At least not the sort you're thinking of.

      2. I'll remind any school-aged Slashdot snowflakes reading this that parents do indeed have such rights.

  4. Re:Big Brother by Wolvenhaven · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Threatening someone with jail time or fines if they don't volunteer is like saying there is a mandatory donation required to attend a free event.

    --
    Orwell was an optimist.
  5. 8 PM? by dragonsomnolent · · Score: 5, Insightful

    WTF? If this is about them skipping school, what does their location at 8PM have anything to do with whether or not they are at school?

    --
    I got nuthin
  6. Re:8PM? by SecurityGuy · · Score: 3, Insightful

    A better system would probably be to call their parents every evening and ask where their kids are.

    No, it wouldn't. This parent would respond "It's 8pm in the evening, not during school hours, and it's none of your business where my children are."