Texas Truant Students To Be Tracked By GPS Anklets!

Texas Truant Students To Be Tracked By GPS Anklets!

news.yahoo.com

SAN ANTONIO, Texas – Court authorities here will be able to track students with a history of skipping school under a new program requiring them to wear ankle bracelets with Global Positioning System monitoring.

But at least one group is worried the ankle bracelets will infringe on students' privacy.

Linda Penn, a Bexar County justice of the peace, said she anticipates that about 50 students from four San Antonio-area school districts — likely to be mostly high schoolers — will wear the anklets during the six-month pilot program announced Friday. She said the time the students wear the anklets will be decided on a case-by-case basis.

(visit the link for the full news article)

Man, what the heck is going on with the Texas school system?!? A few weeks ago, I posted the following thread:

www.abovetopsecret.com...

In it, students who don't adhere to the dress code, will be subjected and forced to wear "Prison Jumpsuits" as a form of punishment.

Now we have THIS-Truant students being forced to wear Prison anklets with GPS tracking in them!

What's next? Mandatory RFID injections?

I'm sure the usual bunch will chime in here what a "good thing" this is, but this ever-oppressive, authoritorian nonsense is starting to permeate and dominate every facet of our society, and it definitely is cause for concern IMHO...

"We are at a critical point in our time where we can either educate or incarcerate," Penn said, linking truancy with juvenile delinquency and later criminal activity. "We can teach them now or run the risk of possible incarceration later on in life. I don't want to see the latter."

Penn said students in the program will wear the ankle bracelets full-time and will not be able to remove them. They'll be selected as they come through her court, and Penn will target truant students with gang affiliations, those with a history of running away and skipping school and those who have been through her court multiple times.

"Students and parents must understand that attending school is not optional," Penn said. "When they fail to attend school, they are breaking the law."

news.yahoo.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

reply to post by DimensionalDetective


Sounds like the school system is getting desperate, drop-out rates must be through the roof for them to stoop to these sorts of levels... So these kids "rebel" from a brain-washing school system only to be forced into wearing GPS-Locators. That's taking it too far and it makes you wonder how far the school system is willing to go. DNA and fingerprints from all students in case one of them breaks the law/pulls the fire alarm? Bars on the windows, barbed wire on the fences? Its bad enough schools are almost prisons for the mind, but now they're in real danger of becoming like actual prisons...

Back in my day we had random searches with metal detectors and a push for "school uniforms". I look back on that and wonder why we students let them get away with it, parents need to stand up for their kids and kids need to stand up for themselves, educate themselves, and be ready to question any information/policy of any authority figures.

So the question is, what will the school system try next and where is the line going to be drawn

I am not going to argue that this is a good thing, but I am going to say, from my recent experiences with the Tx school system, many school systems have gone through every other option.

It isn't just kids skipping here and there, it's kids never going, the parents not caring that they don't go to school. Whatever consequences they attempt to put in place are irrelevent; how do you really discipline a kid that doesn't go to school, doesn't care about grades, doesn't participate in extracurricular activities, and doesn't have mom or dad caring how he does?

It's a sad world when you have to say school or jail, but I can at least grasp at the logic behind it.

Originally posted by asmeone2
I am not going to argue that this is a good thing, but I am going to say, from my recent experiences with the Tx school system, many school systems have gone through every other option.

Except for making school an interesting place to go. Instead you have teachers that don't want to be there and are either drunk or tweeked.
Just waiting for their next paycheck, summer vacation or holiday.
Texas only pretends to pay teachers so they pretend to teach.
Up the pay scale so the school systems will attract teachers that are
educators. Teachers with real skills soon find out that they can
make twice the $$$ in the private sector so they leave teaching never to
return. Like me.

I don't mean this as a blanket indictment on all Texas teachers and those
that tolerate the rougher schools have my greatest admiration.
Perhaps Texas should arm all teachers, dress all students in orange jumpsuits, put gps units on the students and quit calling it education and
call it what it really is....forced socialized brainwashing.

Of course the schools in the richer neighborhoods with a huge tax base
don't have the same problems as the ones where the poor kids are forced to go.

I am a product of the Texas public school system and thank the good Lord
I had enough sense to read at home. I proudly take credit for educating myself. And thanks to New Mexico and California for their BA and MA programs.

[edit on 23-8-2008 by whaaa]

[edit on 23-8-2008 by whaaa]

I can almost guarantee you this story is 100% true and will be implemented.
I love this Op, you always have such good stuff to share!

As i said in other threads i went to Texas and came back and it was quite enlightening.

reply to post by whaaa


The bigger problem that I noticed is that many districts focused almost entirely on sports, because that brought in money to the school (and the whole town in some cases) if the teams were good.

Instead of hiring teachers, they would make the coaches teach one or two periods each day.

I kid you not, I had a high-school biology teacher who equated teaching with showing Jurrasic Park and Steve Irwin videos.

Originally posted by asmeone2
I kid you not, I had a high-school biology teacher who equated teaching with showing Jurrasic Park and Steve Irwin videos.

LOL, I never went to class in the afternoons because my teacher/coaches
never showed up. So we went and played golf. I was on the golf team, no coach, and we either played or sat at the 19th hole and drank beer my whole High School career. Go Plainsmen!!!

If they had of fitted us with gps anklets back then; we would have been chronically truant.

[edit on 23-8-2008 by whaaa]

While I don't agree with this, I do not fault anyone but the parents. The system is policing these students bc the parents would rather let the schools raise thier children.

If the parents would step up and take on the responsibility, the school districts wouldn't have a leg to stand on with these decisions.

As it is, they are being forced to play parent to thousands of students and in this regards, they have to come up with something for the "society" of children... thus, the GPS anklets.

Quit faulting the school districts for trying to raise the multitudes and look to the ones that blame really lies with... the parents, the ones who should be ultimately be responsible for thier individual children.

[edit on 23-8-2008 by justamomma]

reply to post by DimensionalDetective


Why they don't hurry up and do what they wanted to do to begin with, put chips on everybody and like that the deed is done deal.

After all this where is heading.

Originally posted by justamomma
While I don't agree with this, I do not fault anyone but the parents. The system is policing these students bc the parents would rather let the schools raise thier children.

I do agree that some parents shirk their duty as parents but in todays
economy, both parents are forced to work, sometimes working two jobs, when they get home they
more than likely will be brain dead tired. Leaves little time for proper parenting.

momma, if you are not in this predicament, you are very lucky. I live in a very affluent neighborhood and invariably both parents work long hours just to maintain their lifestyle.

No child left behind........right!

reply to post by whaaa


Well, seeing that I am a single parent of a 5 and (almost) 7 yr old who shoulders about 95% of the responsibility both financially, emotionally, and physically I feel that I have probably even more right to say as much than families who have two parents helping out.


I am physically and mentally drained MORE OFTEN than not, but I wouldn't dare let that be an excuse not to make sure that they are where they are supposed to be and learning both values from me and getting an education at school.

When kids skip school, it is a waste of the tax payers money. If the parents and kids don't want the students wearing these GPS anklets, then they will be sure to make them show up to their classes, will they not?



[edit on 23-8-2008 by justamomma]

Texas schools cater to the needs of the areas job market, which can vary within the same school district. The school my son graduated from issued either an academic or vocational diploma. Where I live now, the school system is mainly concerned with creating employs for Wal-Mart or the Prison system. I was a drop out and got my G.E.D. 18 months before I was to graduate. I think that most people learn early in life when someone is trying to blow smoke up their a**es, and thats what I sensed was going on. I saw school as a means to punish those that wanted truthful answers, to relevant questions, and to nurture the ones that could accept without question the incomplete truths we were being told. It is pretty easy to identify people educated in systems like those in Texas. They are the ones that try to convince you they are right by repeating the same belief, or irrelevant fact, over and over again. That is the way that the teachers taught and from what I hear still do. The students that are truants are likely not learning anything in class or are being used as examples of what not to be. Humiliation isn't going to do anything but drive them farther from the class room.

Wait a minute. Don't you guys have to pay for your schooling?

So doesn't this just fall in line with other businesses, if you don't like them, go somewhere else?

Just leave. Leave those schools empty and abandoned as a message to the rest of them what happens when you tread on freedoms.

Sounds like a basic solution to me, am I missing something?

No, these are public schools. You don't pay for them, you're forced to go to them. I am in favor of completely getting rid of public schools and instead having a voucher system, where the government gives you a voucher which the school you choose can redeem as payment, and you get to pick what school to give it to based on how they perform. This ankle bracelet idea is so ridiculous I'm in shock its even real. How the hell can anyone consider this legal? School is not prison. Well, I mean, it is, but.. well, y'know. This is unconstitional.

reply to post by DimensionalDetective


when can we implament this in the UK
youths are out of control here and should be kept on a leash

reply to post by Titen-Sxull


San Antonio schools already have imposed uniforms in most schools in the area. This went into effect about 5 years ago if im not mistaking.. It was implemented to reduce disruptive dress code violations as well as making everyone look the same, so cliques would not be so diverse and noticeable. I thought when this was imposed was almost prison like. It reminds me of "Pink Floyd - The Wall" movie when the song "Another Brick in the Wall" played.

It just seems the more we let stuff like this happen, the more acceptable each generation will allow more control for the next, because of the "we grew up with it, why not impose more restrictions for the sake of the children" attitude. And they wonder why kids "act out" and go on rampages.......then blame it for the violence and sex portrayed in movies, music, and video games. My children will be home schooled once they reach middle school. I am sick of the sheep that allow this type of stuff to happen because they get the majority of the vote.

[edit on 23-8-2008 by BRAWNDO]

You know what........My kids skips class and this is a option..I might take it. I don't think kids should have much if any freedom. At 18 they are free...Under that in my house and it is "because I said so!!!"

So it seems that the court system is planning to implement the tracking program and the school is allowing it - probably because if they don't, they'll lose out on some sort of funding.

Who will be paying for approximately 50 new GPS tracking bracelets, I wonder? The taxpayers?

This is the second thread about this subject, but I want to comment again anyway, (this may have been the first one created, I don't know)

I would have graduated high school if this had been available in the 70's. My whole outlook and life would have been different. It would have set me onto a different path. My parents could not make me go to school, but this would have worked.