School District Goes All "Big Brother" on Students

[ohnoitsabear]

Not necessarily. If a school is using them to know where every student is at every time, then you'd have an argument. However, if the cameras are there, but only looked at in case something serious happens (more serious than a few kids skipping class), then they do have value. For example, one year at my school, there were two bomb threats, and the school didn't have any security cameras, and they weren't able to figure out who did it either time. Had they had security cameras, they could have figured out who did it right away. So security cameras in schools actually do have legitimate value.

If they are not there, the opportunity to misuse them does not exist.

The worst way that somebody could misuse them is using them to track what students are doing on the school grounds. But, I think that's a moot point, because if a school was resorting to tracking all of their students, they probably have a legitimate reason for doing so, and if they really wanted to keep track of their students on the school grounds, there are other methods that they could use, like hall monitors. Schools use cameras instead because they're cheaper and require less people to use.

Now, this is a bit of a pre-emptive point, but please don't pull the privacy argument. A school is a public place, and in a public place, you have no right to privacy, at least in the sense of knowing where you are and what you're doing, which is all cameras would be able to know anyway.

 

[DaWaffledude]

And hey, WW3 just got one step closer.

 

[KiloFox]

my school in CA tried something a bit tamer. basically the same thing but without the RFID tags. and the students were OUTRAGED. barely any of us wore it around the neck like we were SUPPOSED to. and a few of us neglected to carry it at ALL. (i wore mine at my belt) if they had the gall to add in tracker chips, hell we would've had a bonfire in the quad and burned the new IDs.

hell even the "goody two shoes" kids barely wore the IDs properly. it didn't help to get rid of the policy though. they don't care what the kids think. only the adults matter to them. the security guards were cool though and did nothing more than remind students to wear them around the neck. we never got penalized for not having them. (it helps that i knew all of them. i even got my best friend out of trouble after he threatened the substitute teachers life.)

 

[Zagzag]

So wait, if you want to truant, you can just take off the tracker... I'm not really sure how this is supposed to prevent truancy. Yes, you know if people are truanting, but didn't we know that already?

 

[black_omega2]

I'm not sure what this accomplishes. If its meant to be an anti-truancy device then it'll fail horribly because if you're going to be truant why would you care. If anything instead of just skipping class you may as well just skip the whole day instead or think of some clever way to circumvent the system since you're determined to be truant.
So, I'm inclined to believe they're doing this for some other reason the most likely of which is that they'll get more monies somehow.

 

[triggrhappy94]

Can you imagine the shit storm on Fox if such a program had been mandated by the federal government?
Gotta love those double standards.

Forget federal, imagine the shit storm at Faux if California did something like this.

I also love how voter id found it's way in here.

 

[yeti585]

I thought a school was supposed to resemble a learning environment not a prison?

HAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHA--My sides!--Hahahahah... wait you're serious?

Well think about it they tell you what you can and cannot say, where you can and cannot go, what you can and cannot wear, when and what you have to do, you have no say in anything that happens, even what you can or cannot eat. What about all that sounds like a place that isn't essentially a prison? The only thing that is really any different is that they can't physically force you but instead essentially have your future hostage. Do what we say or you will be a bum on the street for the rest of your life sorta scenario.

I know what you mean. I had to view supreme court cases regarding schools in school a while ago. Some of the stuff was astounding. A student in some school district gave a speech[footnote]http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/fraserspeech.html[/footnote], which on the surface was fine, and got disciplined for it. Another pair of students took a sign to an Olympic torch running ceremony that said "Bong hits for Jesus" (I admit this is less innocent but still) and got disciplined for it. The only case that comes that comes to mind that the students actually won was "Tinker v. Des Moines" (a case in which students were wearing black armbands to protest a war).

To get off of freedom of speech; there was a case in which a student (middle or highschool, can't remember) got caught smoking cigarettes and was sent to the principal's office. The principal then decided to dig through her handbag (I think that he saw rolling papers through an opening) and found marijuana. The supreme court ruled that the principal didn't need a search warrant to invade this girl's space, but only a reasonable suspicion. Less than police need, actually, the principal doesn't need any hardcore evidence.

 

[Vicarious Reality]

I can not think of any reason to protest such a tracking system
But on the other hand, i can neither see any reason to track students every movement

 

[CrazyCapnMorgan]

"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." - Benjamin Franklin.

Also, from one former teacher who lives not too far from where I live:


Lastly, George Carlin, one of America's most talented comedians and social critics quit school at 9th grade.

School sucks.

 

[2012 Wont Happen]

If my school had pulled that when I was there I would have dropped out without even a minutes consideration.

They already were pretty full of shit though, so it really would've just been the straw that broke the camels back.

 

[Oliver Nue]

Sounds like an easy way to "prove" you have 100% attendance to me.

 

[direkiller]

From what im gathering, it tracks them off campus too? And the 8pm role call is terrible.

No it says so at the end of the artical

From the looks of it there just RF tags in a card.
They use this at large Ski slopes

Your ID is taged when you walk in the door of the classroom. And can only track when you walk by a sensor.
Its not like it's a GPS tracker in phones or anything from the looks of it. It can only tell when the tag walked though the door not if the kid is down the street at the candy shop.

 

[zidine100]

... forcing someone into a class who doesnt want to be there, is just going to cause problems for the rest of them.

Here's a idea, lets not waste money and have a strict unexplained attendance quota policy have registers at the start of classes, simple you see whos there and whos not, if they dont follow it, expulsion or those other punishments you have mentioned, this is just utterly ridiculous that they even have to stoop to these levels.

Yes lets treat all pupils like criminals, are you sure you don't just want to give them a electronic tag strapped onto there leg?

besides getting kids used to be watched isn't going o end well, it open's doors for the next generation to be more accepting of privacy invasion.

 

[Frankster]

Speaking as a kid with insanely high truancy (daily and at some point in highschool i was bunking off and missing entire classes/days), this would have made my adolescence much harder :/

Its not like it's a GPS tracker in phones or anything from the looks of it. It can only tell when the tag walked though the door not if the kid is down the street at the candy shop.

Hah is that it? I take back what i said, this means that in order to leave when youre not supposed to all you need to do is find a way out of the school that didnt pass through those gates, unless the school is a an actual prison then that should be doable.

Edit: Its in classrooms? Trickier, but still doable. Aswell as the obvious solution of leaving your tracking chip or w/e in a spot thats legit and absent yourself for the duration of the lunchbreak.

 

[Matthi205]

Doesn't seem too harsh. I mean, as long as you only have to carry it with you while you're in school it's no worse than surveillance cameras.

Surveillance cameras in schools are also unacceptable.

Which doesn't change the fact that they exist (usually to just look the other way, but that's just a very simple unimportant detail).

RFID isn't that bad an idea, because if they haven't set up radio towers all around town they'll probably only know if you are on the campus and if yes - where.
GPS on the other hand is a totally different kind of beast. It's satellite-based, which means that the signal can reach you and estimate your position in the whole area the satellite covers.

 

[Flames66]

Doesn't seem too harsh. I mean, as long as you only have to carry it with you while you're in school it's no worse than surveillance cameras.

Surveillance cameras in schools are also unacceptable.

Which doesn't change the fact that they exist (usually to just look the other way, but that's just a very simple unimportant detail).

RFID isn't that bad an idea, because if they haven't set up radio towers all around town they'll probably only know if you are on the campus and if yes - where.
GPS on the other hand is a totally different kind of beast. It's satellite-based, which means that the signal can reach you and estimate your position in the whole area the satellite covers.

I am not disputing that they do exist, I am just saying they shouldn't. I also believe that they shouldn't be used in public spaces and that any kind of tracking without reason is immoral and I am doing what I can to fight against it.

 

[newfoundsky]

It's a radio frequency. There are lots of ways around that. There are also lots of ways to show that a student is in one place, but they're actually in another (such as, you know, not wearing the damn thing.)

Fun things to do with your id:

1. Throw it in the dumpster, confuse school officials by going to the dump!
2. Switch id's with random students.
3. Hit it with a hammer and break the receiver. You now have access to the whole school and can skip as much as you want!
4. Be male. Have a girl wear your id into the girls bathroom.
5. Collect them all.

 

[backinthepresentfuture]

ohhh boy >_< well...i'd say it's time to drag them out into the streets and impale them. obviously these people are worthless, so the least they can do is liven up the atmosphere.