Parents Protest School Mandate That Students Wear Radio ID Tags

[cloverleaf762]

Source: Sign On San Diego
Date: February 9, 2005


Parents Protest School Mandate That Students Wear Radio ID Tags

SUTTER(CA) – The only grade school in this rural town is requiring students to wear radio frequency identification badges that can track their every move. Some parents are outraged, fearing it will rob their children of privacy.

The badges introduced at Brittan Elementary School on Jan. 18 rely on the same radio frequency and scanner technology that companies use to track livestock and product inventory.

While similar devices are being tested at several schools in Japan so parents can know when their children arrive and leave, Brittan appears to be the first U.S. school district to embrace such a monitoring system.


Dawn and Mike Cantrall's daughter, a seventh-grader at Brittan Elementary School, poses at her Sutter home wearing the Radio Frequency Identification tag that the school asked her to wear.
Civil libertarians hope to keep it that way.

"If this school doesn't stand up, then other schools might adopt it," Nicole Ozer, a representative of the American Civil Liberties Union, warned school board members at a meeting Tuesday night. "You might be a small community, but you are one of the first communities to use this technology."

The system was imposed, without parental input, by the school as a way to simplify attendance-taking and potentially reduce vandalism and improve student safety. Principal Earnie Graham hopes to eventually add bar codes to the existing ID's so that students can use them to pay for cafeteria meals and check out library books.

But some parents see a system that can monitor their children's movements on campus as something straight out of Orwell.

"There is a way to make kids safer without making them feel like a piece of inventory," said Michael Cantrall, one of several angry parents who complained. "Are we trying to bring them up with respect and trust, or tell them that you can't trust anyone, you are always going to be monitored and someone is always going to be watching you?"

Cantrall said he told his children, in the 5th and 7th grades, not to wear the badges. He also filed a protest letter with the board and alerted the ACLU.

Graham, who also serves as the superintendent of the single-school district, told the parents that their children could be disciplined for boycotting the badges – and that he doesn't understand what all their angst is about.

"Sometimes when you are on the cutting edge, you get caught," Graham said, recounting the angry phone calls and notes he has received from parents.

Each student is required to wear identification cards around their necks with their picture, name and grade and a wireless transmitter that beams their ID number to a teacher's handheld computer when the child passes under an antenna posted above a classroom door.

Graham also asked to have a chip reader installed in locker room bathrooms to reduce vandalism, although that reader is not functional yet. And while he has ordered everyone on campus to wear the badges, he said only the 7th and 8th grade classrooms are being monitored thus far.

In addition to the privacy concerns, parents are worried that the information on and inside the badges could wind up in the wrong hands and endanger their children, and that radio frequency technology might carry health risks.

Graham dismisses each objection, arguing that the devices do not emit any cancer-causing radioactivity, and that for now, they merely confirm that each child is in his or her classroom, rather than track them around the school like a global-positioning device.

The 15-digit ID number that confirms attendance is encrypted, he said, and not linked to other personal information such as an address or telephone number.

What's more, he says that it is within his power to set rules that promote a positive school environment: If he thinks ID badges will improve things, he says, then badges there will be.

"You know what it comes down to? I believe junior high students want to be stylish. This is not stylish," he said.

This latest adaptation of radio frequency ID technology was developed by InCom Corp., a local company co-founded by the parent of a former Brittan student, and some parents are suspicious about the financial relationship between the school and the company. InCom plans to promote it at a national convention of school administrators next month.

InCom has paid the school several thousand dollars for agreeing to the experiment, and has promised a royalty from each sale if the system takes off, said the company's co-founder, Michael Dobson, who works as a technology specialist in the town's high school. Brittan's technology aide also works part-time for InCom.

Not everyone in this close-knit farming town northwest of Sacramento is against the system. Some said they welcomed the IDs as a security measure.

"This is not Mayberry. This is Sutter, California. Bad things can happen here," said Tim Crabtree, an area parent.

[Don Gwinn]

"You know what it comes down to? I believe junior high students want to be stylish. This is not stylish," he said.

Yeah, that must be it, you poor little semi-man.

Not everyone in this close-knit farming town northwest of Sacramento is against the system. Some said they welcomed the IDs as a security measure.

"This is not Mayberry. This is Sutter, California. Bad things can happen here," said Tim Crabtree, an area parent.

Thanks for your opinion, genius. Bad things can indeed happen. For instance, some control freak might decide that everybody in town should be tracked with radio collars as if they lived in a really bad sci-fi movie. That would be a bad thing, wouldn't it, Goober?

Jeebus Crow, these people are giving me a headache.

[Unique 5.7]

Great! Let's teach kids to be used to living under a totalitarian regime.
I don't want to steal the credit for this (couldn't find it), but didn't somebody say something like:

"A watched people do not act as free people."

[thelast2]

Funny this should come up. Here in Alaska we recently had a first grader sexually assualt another first grader in the bathroom, the victims mother shows up after school and cant find her son, apparently the teachers didnt realize the kid was missing. The child was later found in the bathroom where he had stayed for a better part of the day after the assault. Worst part of this story is the aggresor had similiar issues in another school and was moved. This time around the school district in all of there wisdom just moved the kids into different classes. Needless to say I think the school superintendent has singed her own demise. While I dont condone radio tracking of the children I think requiring the teachers and school district to do the jobs they have been given would be an improvement. While the kids are at school its the teachers and staffs responsibilty to account for those kids, and quite frankly if they cant handle it they need to find another line of work.

[Number 6]

has already been posted.

Further, the policy has been terminated. For now.............

[Rich Lucibella]

Number 6-
I knew I had read it and did a search under the kid's name and the school's name. Came up with nada and assumed I read it on another Board. Can you give me a link to the original?
Thanks-
Rich

[LAK]

Tracking people like "livestock and inventory" ... who would of thought?

Another pilot program.

[w4klr]

InCom has paid the school several thousand dollars for agreeing to the experiment, and has promised a royalty from each sale if the system takes off, said the company's co-founder, Michael Dobson, who works as a technology specialist in the town's high school. Brittan's technology aide also works part-time for InCom.

I guess anyone can make sense of an idea when there are royalties involved.

Graham dismisses each objection, arguing that the devices do not emit any cancer-causing radioactivity, and that for now, they merely confirm that each child is in his or her classroom, rather than track them around the school like a global-positioning device.

As a ham, I know the dangers of radio frequency radiation. Even though these transmitters are low power, and probably in the 2.4ghz frequency stretch (assuming), our kids go to school for what...6-8 hours a day? So plant a transmitter next to your heart that will emit radiation next to you for the next 3-4 years of your life. Prolonged RF radiation does prove to form Lieukemia (sp?), and while yes our everyday environment is soaked with RF radiation, we don't have the transmitters next to vital organs for 8 hours a day, 5 days a week.

[LHB1]

Hey Guys,
Ease up a minute. This is not about abusing personal rights but about protecting our kids and grandkids. That article may or may NOT be accurate. Those badges may NOT allow someone to track a student's every move. A local school district here is using a system for students to wear badges which ONLY RECORD WHEN A STUDENT PASSES NEAR A RECORDER. They are used to record entry and exit of a school bus. Purpose is to be able to tell a parent where/when their child got onto the school bus and off the school bus. Again, it does NOT track the student's every move. When a parent calls the school saying "My Susie didn't get off the bus today. Where is she?", the school can query the system to tell the parent "Your Susie got off the bus at xx location and yy time". This helps both school and parents in locating missing students. Sometimes the student just got off at a friend's house without telling anyone OR sometimes they may have been coerced.

I would NOT be for FULL TRACKING capability using radio signals but using scannable tags for this defined purpose is in my opinion a welcome advance and safety precaution. I would approve use of such technology by my grandson. As far as I know, the local school is not having any major flap over use of their scannable tags.

LB

[Number 6]

"Those badges may NOT allow someone to track a student's every move."

WRONG. Try actually READING the article:

"The badges introduced at Brittan Elementary School on Jan. 18 rely on the same radio frequency and scanner technology that companies use to track livestock and product inventory."

Further,

"Each student is required to wear identification cards around their necks with their picture, name and grade and a wireless transmitter that beams their ID number to a teacher's handheld computer when the child passes under an antenna posted above a classroom door."

Got that? FULL-time monitoring, with FULL student data.

And "Save the children" is the bleating we hear every time a right is usurped by a specious assertion of "safety."

* Read The Full Document!

[Rich Lucibella]

Again, it does NOT track the student's every move.

Not today it doesn't. However, if Liberal History teaches us anything, it teaches us this: If a tool is "Good" today, a lot more of it will be "Better" tomorrow.

What ever happened to personal and job responsibility? I can't imagine a bus driver not remembering if a specific student got on or off the bus or a teacher not remembering if a specific student was in his class that day. At least, not in the days when people were actually expected to WORK for a living.

Safety is an important thing. But replacing personal responsibility and common sense with a bar code reader will certainly not make kids "more" safe; it will have the exact opposite effect in the long run; meantime, dumbing them down to the very concept of personal freedoms.
Rich

[LHB1]

Hi Number 6,
My point was not what the article actually said but whether indeed it was correct. The news media does have a history of reporting things in the most dramatic way for their benefit even if it means distorting the truth. Read some of the published articles about guns to see what I mean.

Good shooting and be safe.
LB

[Fred Hansen]

Yeah, that must be it, you poor little semi-man.

LMAO

[paratrooper]

It could even be voluntary . We put chips in our beloved pets , we put Lojack on our expensive SUV's . Someday when a child is worth as much as an Escalade it will become common practise . I would think that it could be more dormant until a problem arises AND the activation is recorded as well as the cause . If some school official decides to "play" with it they will be allowed to use the very same computer to polish up their resume before mailing it out NOW!!!!! (and sit home waiting for results)

[FallenPhoenix]

You can bet the ability to track a tag within the school is already there, all it needs is the proper antenna and a checkbox in the software.

Whatever happened to just taking role?

[Don Gwinn]

The solution to a kid who has shown that he sexually abuses other children is to place him in a self-contained program, where he's in the same room all day with teachers and aides and is escorted everywhere he goes.

The solution is NOT to force all the OTHER kids who have NOT demonstrated any dangerous proclivities to live like cattle (any more than we already do.)


One of the reasons a company like this is willing to pay money to get their system used in a school is that they know it's an environment of people who are already being conditioned to authority--following bell schedules, asking permission to go potty, etc. To an extent, that is necessary and important for children, but it also creates an environment that's just a little more permissive of tyranny, which is why so many petty tyrants become school teachers and administrators.

And before anyone asks, I'm one of those people who escorts a child with an Emotional Disturbance diagnosis everywhere he goes throughout the day. I'm a certified regular-division teacher working on special-ed certification and a Master's in special ed. I love education, but I see the warts.

[Don Gwinn]

Again, it does NOT track the student's every move. When a parent calls the school saying "My Susie didn't get off the bus today. Where is she?", the school can query the system to tell the parent "Your Susie got off the bus at xx location and yy time". This helps both school and parents in locating missing students. Sometimes the student just got off at a friend's house without telling anyone OR sometimes they may have been coerced.

Technology has solved this problem. You take wood, pulp it up, and press it out in flat sheets about 8.5" x 11". Then you crush and mix graphite with clay and press it between halves of a cedar shaft (a lot of places paint these yellow.)

Then the bus driver keeps those two objects next to him on the bus and, when a student gets off in a different location than usual, he writes a little note of it. It takes ten seconds rather than the half a second the radio tracker takes, but it costs about a thousandth as much and it works.

In a pinch, you can use a different technology involving a tube of ink with a captive ball on the end and the palm of your hand.

[Mike Irwin]

I wear one of these things every day.

Condition of my employment for a high tech company.

My Grandmother wore one in her last couple of years at the nursing home. So did all of the other dementia patients.

I hate to tell everyone this, but kids, and most people, in this country are already treated like cattle.

Think about it.

[bill k]

Just an update, but about two or three weeks ago because of pressure from parents and the media, Britten discontinued the program.
A computer science teacher at Sutter High and a partner developed the program in hopes of other school districts adopting the program. Britten was given some monitary incentives to be the test bed for the program.

[shaggy]

Could be coming soon to a driver's license near you!

(its not just for kids anymore...)

http://www.thefiringline.com/forums/...d.php?t=162032