Radio ID Tags Draw Parent Protest

I don't know about this. I understand why they want to keep
track of the kiddies ... but at GRADE school level? The sneaking
off from school campus doesn't usually start until middle school,
right? (or am I just old and times have changed?) I can see
why the school wants to keep track of kids, but I can also
see why parents are upset. I'm on the fence with this one.

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Parents protest radio ID tags for students

SUTTER, California (AP) -- 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 January 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.

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 IDs 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.

www.cnn.com...

OOOOOOOOOOOOPS - just got a U2U that this has already been
started elsewhere. I didn't see it. Mods .... ????

WHere else has it been started??