California Students Who Skip School Tracked By GPS

By BananaFamine on February 25, 2011 in News 57

Eric Capenter reports in the Orange County Register:

ANAHEIM — Frustrated by students habitually skipping class, police and school officials in Anaheim are turning to GPS tracking to ensure they come to class.

The Anaheim Union High School District is the first in California to test Global Positioning System technology as part of a six-week pilot program that began last week, officials said.

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.

Each morning on schooldays, they get an automated phone call reminding them that they need to get to school on time. Then, 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.

The students are also assigned an adult coach who calls them at least three times a week to see how they are doing and help them find effective ways to make sure they get to class on time.

For more information, see original article.

Civil Liberties, Education, GPS, Police State, Privacy, Society, Surveillance, Technology

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AjariBonten

First they came for the students ………..
AjariBonten

First they came for the students ………..
WhiteRose

Why don’t they track the parents…..
- hucksawyer
  
  Why don’t they track the cops…
  - http://hormeticminds.blogspot.com/ Chaorder Gradient
    
    Why don’t they track the politicians… (hmm… they might try to pull that one on senators because of the whole Wisconsin debacle, give it time)
WhiteRose

Why don’t they track the parents…..
E.B. Wolf

Can’t wait till some creative student has fun with this by stashing the GPS on a greyhound bus or maybe on a car with out-of-state plates on it.
I know I would have had fun with this if they tried it while I was still in school.
- hucksawyer
  
  Easy – they make fidgeting with the tracker a federal offense. Destroy the tracker yourself and off you go to juvie. Or have your freedom-loving papa do it, and wave byebye to him as the police truck takes him away. And of course these actions are justified. Because we care for the children. They have to receive their edumacation. That’s how it is, sonny. You can run and you can hide, but we’ll find you with the GPS tracker we stuck up your ass, and we’ll carry you back to school so you can get your daily dosage of bullying and indoctrination.
  - E.B. Wolf
    
    I never said destroy, just strategically misplace. You know how ADD those kids are today. Oops!
    - http://pulse.yahoo.com/_TMA3THUS6SFK2OJ3UTTGXD6ZPA At the end of desire…wisdom.
      
      Or accidentally drop it in a toilet. A lot.
      
      EVERY parent should object to the school even attempting to do this. Next it will be those dang tracking bracelets used for parolees. For truancy. For skipping school. For NOTHING.
      
      Uh uh. Oh hell no. BAD idea.
E.B. Wolf

Can’t wait till some creative student has fun with this by stashing the GPS on a greyhound bus or maybe on a car with out-of-state plates on it.
I know I would have had fun with this if they tried it while I was still in school.
Anonymous

Easy – they make fidgeting with the tracker a federal offense. Destroy the tracker yourself and off you go to juvie. Or have your freedom-loving papa do it, and wave byebye to him as the police truck takes him away. And of course these actions are justified. Because we care for the children. They have to receive their edumacation. That’s how it is, sonny. You can run and you can hide, but we’ll find you with the GPS tracker we stuck up your ass, and we’ll carry you back to school so you can get your daily dosage of bullying and indoctrination.
Anonymous

Why don’t they track the cops…
irishpotatogun

why not make the school a place where children actually want to go to.
- http://www.victoriangothic.org Haystack
  
  Yeah, no kidding. Or to put it differently, raise kids that feel motivated to go to college, or at least get real jobs someday. Forcing someone to sit in a classroom isn’t going to make them learn. Maybe, put some of that GPS money into paying teachers?
  - Frodo
    
    Send the little truants to Iraq for a 20 year homesteading stint w/ captured illegals. That will motivate all the criminals. California would save billions and get on the right track.
- 5by5
  
  Seriously, many of these schools look like prisons (steel bars on the windows, metal detectors on the doors), a lot of California schools are so overcrowded (45 to a class) that kids are educated in temporary structures with poor air conditioning, and even so, Cali is doing “better” that some place in the U.S. (Texas comes to mind).
  
  Compared this to the top-of-the-line schools staffed by 100% unionized teaching force in Finland where there are 3 teachers for every class of 30 kids, and they are paid a living wage, and don’t have to do the kind of crap I watched my mother do during her 49 year career as a teacher, like buying school supplies out of her own money, because the school system didn’t provide her with the educational materials needed to teach her classes.
  
  Thomas Jefferson created the public school system because he wanted every American, regardless of their financial circumstances to be educated. He said, “Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day.”
  
  it’s time we stop screwing around creating charter schools (which are primarily about religious indoctrination), or shuffling off kids to private schools if you have the money, and really COMMIT to our public education system and making it better.
  
  And before people go off blaming only the teachers for everything going wrong, we might want to stop picking at the speck in their eye and pay attention to the log in our own eyes. Parents need to get off their duffs and make sure their kids get to school and stay there (no BS GPS needed, just better parenting), school administrators need to support their teachers instead of acting like curriculum cops for those idiotic standardized tests (which also need to go bye-bye), taxpayers need to be willing to pay for the kind of educational system we can all be proud of, businesses need to donate to schools because that’s where your future workforce is coming from and if you want them to be competitive, they better be educated, and lawmakers need dump “Every Child Left Behind”, and to stop cutting education budgets and start cutting shit we don’t need like the bloated Homeland Insecurity Department. And for the love of god or the flying spaghetti monster, or whatever you consider sacred — stop letting Texas decide what textbooks the nation receives.
  
  I also recommend reading anything written by Jonathan Kozol. He wrote the books “Letters to a Young Teacher” and “Savage Inequalities” about how the sons and daughters of the privileged are given educational advantages (like smaller class sizes) and the impact that has versus how the poor and middle class in the country are treated in education.
  
  There are two neat lectures online by him here:
  
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SgkZKTPEspg (1-6)
  
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rryBQ7CUCek
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAwNFLXBNSc
  
  He kind of reminds me of Mr. Rogers. The sort of GENTLEman who is precisely the kind of person you want to fire your children’s minds and get them excited by not just what they learn, but by the process of learning ITSELF, so they can continue to grow long after they leave school.
  
  I would also recommend combining that reading/ viewing with two other sources.
  
  One, Naomi Klein’s “Shock Doctrine” where she points out how charter schools are a part of the Milton Friedman-esque “create a crisis so you can exploit it” routine whereby they can decimate the public education system (what happened in New Orleans being the prime example of this). The Friedman-ites would want to do this, because unlike Jefferson, they are autocrats and oligarchs who DON’T want people to be educated — they want them to be dumb, compliant wage slaves. Here’s a good lecture by her that completely relates to what’s happening now with these BS “austerity” measures:
  
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7PyrNkz3Ybw
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P46vSfmyOP0
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IWtMMM38pEE
  
  And two, the TED talks given by Sir Ken Robinson, which you can watch here:
  
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iG9CE55wbtY
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9LelXa3U_I
- Elaghi33
  
  exactly, seems so simple. They don’t wanna go for a reason
irishpotatogun

why not make the school a place where children actually want to go to.
E.B. Wolf

I never said destroy, just strategically misplace. You know how ADD those kids are today. Oops!
http://hormeticminds.blogspot.com/ Chaorder Gradient

Why don’t they track the politicians… (hmm… they might try to pull that one on senators because of the whole Wisconsin debacle, give it time)
http://www.victoriangothic.org Haystack

Yeah, no kidding. Or to put it differently, raise kids that feel motivated to go to college, or at least get real jobs someday. Forcing someone to sit in a classroom isn’t going to make them learn. Maybe, put some of that GPS money into paying teachers?
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_4K3KM67XITZTXUE45K42KS4OEE brian

Yeah…like kids who regularly skip school are going to carry around GPS units just so they can be tracked. They’ll just threaten some nerd to carry it to school for them.
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_4K3KM67XITZTXUE45K42KS4OEE brian

Yeah…like kids who regularly skip school are going to carry around GPS units just so they can be tracked. They’ll just threaten some nerd to carry it to school for them.
DeepCough

Now you can’t rely on satellites to track people: what you need is a T-1000 Truant Officer robot, who says things like, “Come with me if you want to learn.”
DeepCough

Now you can’t rely on satellites to track people: what you need is a T-1000 Truant Officer robot, who says things like, “Come with me if you want to learn.”
5by5

Seriously, many of these schools look like prisons (steel bars on the windows, metal detectors on the doors), a lot of California schools are so overcrowded (45 to a class) that kids are educated in temporary structures with poor air conditioning, and even so, Cali is doing “better” that some place in the U.S. (Texas comes to mind).

Compared this to the top-of-the-line schools staffed by 100% unionized teaching force in Finland where there are 3 teachers for every class of 30 kids, and they are paid a living wage, and don’t have to do the kind of crap I watched my mother do during her 49 year career as a teacher, like buying school supplies out of her own money, because the school system didn’t provide her with the educational materials needed to teach her classes.

Thomas Jefferson created the public school system because he wanted every American, regardless of their financial circumstances to be educated. He said, “Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day.”

it’s time we stop screwing around creating charter schools (which are primarily about religious indoctrination), or shuffling off kids to private schools if you have the money, and really COMMIT to our public education system and making it better.

And before people go off blaming only the teachers for everything going wrong, we might want to stop picking at the speck in their eye and pay attention to the log in our own eyes. Parents need to get off their duffs and make sure their kids get to school and stay there (no BS GPS needed, just better parenting), school administrators need to support their teachers instead of acting like curriculum cops for those idiotic standardized tests (which also need to go bye-bye), taxpayers need to be willing to pay for the kind of educational system we can all be proud of, businesses need to donate to schools because that’s where your future workforce is coming from and if you want them to be competitive, they better be educated, and lawmakers need dump “Every Child Left Behind”, and to stop cutting education budgets and start cutting shit we don’t need like the bloated Homeland Insecurity Department. And for the love of god or the flying spaghetti monster, or whatever you consider sacred — stop letting Texas decide what textbooks the nation receives.

I also recommend reading anything written by Jonathan Kozol. He wrote the books “Letters to a Young Teacher” and “Savage Inequalities” about how the sons and daughters of the privileged are given educational advantages (like smaller class sizes) and the impact that has versus how the poor and middle class in the country are treated in education.

There are two neat lectures online by him here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SgkZKTPEspg (1-6)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rryBQ7CUCek
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAwNFLXBNSc

He kind of reminds me of Mr. Rogers. The sort of GENTLEman who is precisely the kind of person you want to fire your children’s minds and get them excited by not just what they learn, but by the process of learning ITSELF, so they can continue to grow long after they leave school.

I would also recommend combining that reading/ viewing with two other sources.

One, Naomi Klein’s “Shock Doctrine” where she points out how charter schools are a part of the Milton Friedman-esque “create a crisis so you can exploit it” routine whereby they can decimate the public education system (what happened in New Orleans being the prime example of this). The Friedman-ites would want to do this, because unlike Jefferson, they are autocrats and oligarchs who DON’T want people to be educated — they want them to be dumb, compliant wage slaves. Here’s a good lecture by her that completely relates to what’s happening now with these BS “austerity” measures:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7PyrNkz3Ybw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P46vSfmyOP0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IWtMMM38pEE

And two, the TED talks given by Sir Ken Robinson, which you can watch here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iG9CE55wbtY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9LelXa3U_I
ayr53

Isn’t this a total invasion of privacy?Sure classes are over crowded and the schooling system is disgraceful at best…but we’re forgetting that no matter what the government deems O.K(chaining kids to their desks,GPS tracking ,beating them into submission)-kids will always skips school. I 100% agree with “5by5″. That being said,to be fair I don’t know much about the United States schooling systems,but from what I do know it isn’t the best.

We’re(Canada) not quite as overcrowded in our schools,but the system is just as corrupt and many children end up not only skipping class but dropping out. I’d like to see a teaching system that is actually passionate about what they do. For many it’s just a ‘career’ not even a good one at that!
ayr53

Isn’t this a total invasion of privacy?Sure classes are over crowded and the schooling system is disgraceful at best…but we’re forgetting that no matter what the government deems O.K(chaining kids to their desks,GPS tracking ,beating them into submission)-kids will always skips school. I 100% agree with “5by5″. That being said,to be fair I don’t know much about the United States schooling systems,but from what I do know it isn’t the best.

We’re(Canada) not quite as overcrowded in our schools,but the system is just as corrupt and many children end up not only skipping class but dropping out. I’d like to see a teaching system that is actually passionate about what they do. For many it’s just a ‘career’ not even a good one at that!
justagirl

i think it’s a great idea to strengthen students’ problem solving skills.
justagirl

i think it’s a great idea to strengthen students’ problem solving skills.
Wowww.

My high school had History books from the early 90′s and this school has GPS tracking devices for their students. Only in America.
Wowww.

My high school had History books from the early 90′s and this school has GPS tracking devices for their students. Only in America.
Jason

Get rid of money and 85% of our problems will go away. With money no longer affecting teachers wages, we will be able to teach children because we want to, instead of doing it because we need money.
Jason

Get rid of money and 85% of our problems will go away. With money no longer affecting teachers wages, we will be able to teach children because we want to, instead of doing it because we need money.
Jillibean23

this is fucking ridiculous.
Jillibean23

this is fucking ridiculous.
Jodom91

hello Big Brother
- Frodo
  
  Send the little truants to Iraq for a 20 year homesteading stint w/ the illegals. That will motivate the bastards.
  - Jax7151
    
    You’re a moron, or a bad troll. Probably both.
Jodom91

hello Big Brother
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_TMA3THUS6SFK2OJ3UTTGXD6ZPA At the end of desire…wisdom.

Or accidentally drop it in a toilet. A lot.

EVERY parent should object to the school even attempting to do this. Next it will be those dang tracking bracelets used for parolees. For truancy. For skipping school. For NOTHING.

Uh uh. Oh hell no. BAD idea.
SteveStolerJobs

this is why some kids live for another columbine except just make it staff – its blatantly a 4th amendment violation.
SteveStolerJobs

this is why some kids live for another columbine except just make it staff – its blatantly a 4th amendment violation.
http://voxmagi-necessarywords.blogspot.com/ VoxMagi

Thats pathetic. They should have gone with an unremovable GPS collar with a bomb attached that goes off if the child isn’t inside school grounds at the specified time. After the first few head-esplodies…no more tardiness or hookie days. Also, the children should be in giant soundproof plastic hamster bubbles with a port that allows schoolwork and food to be inserted. This will prevent any inappropriate socializing/chat/contact with outside world from occurring. No media devices, no games, no weapons, just a skintight school uniform bodysuit that allows no place to hide any contraband and a shock implant controlled by the teacher that will compel obedience. Then get rid of school buses and just let them run their bubble home as exercise. Worried about bathroom breaks being abused? Don’t be…the weak will be weeded out as burst bladders and septicemia kill off the unworthy.
http://voxmagi-necessarywords.blogspot.com/ VoxMagi

Thats pathetic. They should have gone with an unremovable GPS collar with a bomb attached that goes off if the child isn’t inside school grounds at the specified time. After the first few head-esplodies…no more tardiness or hookie days. Also, the children should be in giant soundproof plastic hamster bubbles with a port that allows schoolwork and food to be inserted. This will prevent any inappropriate socializing/chat/contact with outside world from occurring. No media devices, no games, no weapons, just a skintight school uniform bodysuit that allows no place to hide any contraband and a shock implant controlled by the teacher that will compel obedience. Then get rid of school buses and just let them run their bubble home as exercise. Worried about bathroom breaks being abused? Don’t be…the weak will be weeded out as burst bladders and septicemia kill off the unworthy.
Elaghi33

exactly, seems so simple. They don’t wanna go for a reason
Frodo

Send the little truants to Iraq for a 20 year homesteading stint w/ the illegals. That will motivate the bastards.
Frodo

Send the little truants to Iraq for a 20 year homesteading stint w/ captured illegals. That will motivate all the criminals. California would save billions and get on the right track.
JouBaur

Damn criminals! How dare they not want to ingest unpalatable propaganda!
Joubaur

Damn criminals! How dare they not want to ingest unpalatable propaganda!
http://www.seowebsite-design.com/ seowebsitedesign

Wow… are we taking this a little to far?
Dee343434

Goto to school get shot up
Skip school get shot up
Dee343434

Goto to school get shot up
Skip school get shot up
http://www.facebook.com/people/Randall-Marshall/1288523666 Randall Marshall

“…and at 8pm..”
Whoa. They’re not even trying to pretend like these kids have rights.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Randall-Marshall/1288523666 Randall Marshall

“…and at 8pm..”
Whoa. They’re not even trying to pretend like these kids have rights.
Jax7151

You’re a moron, or a bad troll. Probably both.