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n5wd wrote:

AndyC wrote:Oh, I understand the money-trail. What I'm wondering is.... why aren't teachers manually taking/reporting attendance?

Andy, the only ones I can log on my attendance sheet are the ones that show up in my class. It's not unusual to have kids that are dropped off to school by their parents, and either leave campus on their own or with friends, or who are "selective" in which of their classes they attend. The ID readers at the door can alert the administration that one of the darlings is slipping out when he's not supposed to be, or may show what part of the school building they're in when they're skipping classes.

Not if they leave the tracking device with a friend's backpack or in their locker... Just saying this will not solve the "skipping class" problem of the ages....Perhaps more accurately stated force educating children that want no part of education, but we have to baby sit them anyway. (sorry for that yall, but just remembering my classes and classmates in school that were non-honors classes).

AndyC wrote:

n5wd wrote:

AndyC wrote:Oh, I understand the money-trail. What I'm wondering is.... why aren't teachers manually taking/reporting attendance?

Andy, the only ones I can log on my attendance sheet are the ones that show up in my class. It's not unusual to have kids that are dropped off to school by their parents, and either leave campus on their own or with friends, or who are "selective" in which of their classes they attend. The ID readers at the door can alert the administration that one of the darlings is slipping out when he's not supposed to be, or may show what part of the school building they're in when they're skipping classes.

Fair enough - so the kids whose names show up as missing should be called on the carpet to explain themselves to the principal or whoever, surely.

And, to a large extent, they are. The basically "good kids" who skip a class once in a blue moon get assigned to after-school detention or Saturday school, do their time, and go about their business. The habitual skippers go through the progression of discipline up to the point they're assigned in-school-suspension ( they house in a separate area of school, supposedly don't have any interaction with the rest of the school population, the teachers have to provide extra lessons for them that they can do outside of their regular class (my kids just continue to work on their online courses just like they would in my lab), and .... that's it. Our district has a policy (it may be part of the Education Code, I don't know) that students aren't assigned to the alternative disciplinary school for attendance issues.

n5wd wrote:

AndyC wrote:Oh, I understand the money-trail. What I'm wondering is.... why aren't teachers manually taking/reporting attendance?

Andy, the only ones I can log on my attendance sheet are the ones that show up in my class. It's not unusual to have kids that are dropped off to school by their parents, and either leave campus on their own or with friends, or who are "selective" in which of their classes they attend. The ID readers at the door can alert the administration that one of the darlings is slipping out when he's not supposed to be, or may show what part of the school building they're in when they're skipping classes.

Not if some one else is carrying the chip with them also you can wrap the card in something to block the signal and negate its usefulness.

TxRVer wrote:You realize a reader has to be within inches of the card to scan it.

Mark Roberti, Founder and Editor, RFID Journal wrote:phased array antennas can read tags from a distance of 100 feet to 600 feet (30 meters to 180 meters) or more. Active RFID systems, on the other hand, can typically be read from 300 feet (90 meters) away, but many can now go up to 1,500 feet (460 meters) or more by employing signal repeaters.

RFID was originally only supposed to have a range of about 6ft-ish, and now they can be read from over a quarter-mile away. Tell me with a straight face that nobody will come up with a way to abuse this.

Keep in mind that our educators are not adversaries, they are fellow parents; and as any parent, our paramount interest is the safety of our children. No parent intends for their child to be a mere number among the mindless masses. (though on occasion I do wish mine would shut up & leave me alone) Maybe we should ask our teachers their opinions of this matter.

As a taxpayer I want our schools utilizing the latest & greatest methods to effectively and efficiently manage expenses while providing the best security and education. Our kids are irreplaceable and it is incumbent on us parents to learn exactly what the issues are before we go jumping to conclusions. I am not interested in rhetoric. We should be using logic instead of emotion, rumor and hysteria in determining if this ID system has merit. Let's dont burn any witches until we know what one looks like!

GPS watches and school bag tags are a great idea and I can see similar benefits to using these tags (RFID tags do have limited range & wouldn't be able to track much beyond the school grounds). We should get credible facts in considering the potentials of these tags.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&suge ... ywH73oHYDw

Dave2 wrote:RFID was originally only supposed to have a range of about 6ft-ish, and now they can be read from over a quarter-mile away. Tell me with a straight face that nobody will come up with a way to abuse this.

Name something that cant be abused.

I like the idea of letting parents opt out their kids. I also like the idea of not getting government benefits without ID. No subsidized breakfast/lunch at school, no borrowing books from the school library, no free admission to school events, etc.

Jim Beaux wrote:Keep in mind that our educators are not adversaries, they are fellow parents; and as any parent, our paramount interest is the safety of our children. No parent intends for their child to be a mere number among the mindless masses. (though on occasion I do wish mine would shut up & leave me alone) Maybe we should ask our teachers their opinions of this matter.

As a taxpayer I want our schools utilizing the latest & greatest methods to effectively and efficiently manage expenses while providing the best security and education. Our kids are irreplaceable and it is incumbent on us parents to learn exactly what the issues are before we go jumping to conclusions. I am not interested in rhetoric. We should be using logic instead of emotion, rumor and hysteria in determining if this ID system has merit. Let's dont burn any witches until we know what one looks like!

GPS watches and school bag tags are a great idea and I can see similar benefits to using these tags (RFID tags do have limited range & wouldn't be able to track much beyond the school grounds). We should get credible facts in considering the potentials of these tags.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&suge ... ywH73oHYDw

Sure GPS watches are a great idea for parents. That is because parents almost always look out for their kids best interest.

I remember some of the teachers I had in high school. Some of them were creepy. I would not want my daughter to have a device on her that would permit her to be tracked by anyone with access to the scanner system. I remember some of the techiesI knew, they could get into any place on the school. Did not matter the lock on the door. I simply don't trust that the powers that be would be able to keep my children's locator card safe and them by proxy from people who would abuse it.

Additionally, I find it really disquieting for the gov't at any level to be tracking people's movements that are not employed by that govt. agency.

mamabearCali wrote:and how pray tell will an id card with a chip identify my remains when it is blown to bits along with the rest of me.

If a parent wants to lo-jack their kids I am fine with that, I am not ok with the gooberment doing it. You get one crazy teacher obsessed with one student and now they not only have access to them in class, but can know where they are just about all the time. Too much $$ and too much potential for abuse.

that one I can answer the ID card(CAC) has a profile contained in the mag stripe and the BIO chip, it has many things in it such as your DNA/Genitic profile, NOK,DOB,HOR and several others the database that it is tied to also has the same information, the US Army has since the mid 1980's has kept a bio linked profile of ALL persons in the army, they usually do not get trashed beyond being able to be read, and yes Mama I do know, just crawled out of the sand box a short time ago.

Interesting. My thought was though that if you are blown up to bits, so is your card.

Jim Beaux wrote:

Dave2 wrote:RFID was originally only supposed to have a range of about 6ft-ish, and now they can be read from over a quarter-mile away. Tell me with a straight face that nobody will come up with a way to abuse this.

Name something that cant be abused.

I'll go one further and say you can't name a technology that hasn't been abused, and that's kind of my point... This technology will be abused, and few people seem to seriously be weighing that against the pros.

Dave2 wrote:

Jim Beaux wrote:

Dave2 wrote:RFID was originally only supposed to have a range of about 6ft-ish, and now they can be read from over a quarter-mile away. Tell me with a straight face that nobody will come up with a way to abuse this.

Name something that cant be abused.

I'll go one further and say you can't name a technology that hasn't been abused, and that's kind of my point... This technology will be abused, and few people seem to seriously be weighing that against the pros.

I'll take it one step further. If all they want is to have the students use the readers, why didn't they simply go with magnetic stripe format instead of the RFIDs? Magnetic stripe technology is much harder to abuse. Almost every hotel in the country uses magnetic stripes for security so it is proven and is likely significantly cheaper.

I'm no longer teaching, so there might be some reason this works nicely for schools of which I'm not aware. My kids would not be carrying one of these; I'd homeschool first. I have serious issues with a system that could have safety issues for those that follow the rules, but can be so easily defeated by those that don't. The students that are rule followers could be tracked by someone with nefarious intent, as mentioned upthread. The kids most likely to ditch class could pass their ID to a friend that is attending. In addition, I can see how this could make *more* work for me as a teacher. Would I be expected to check ID's at the door? Are kids that come to class denied access because they don't have their ID? Doesn't that defeat the purpose? It took me 30 seconds to take roll at the beginning of class and enter it into the computer system. Is this type of system being put into place because my word as a professional isn't good enough when I state someone is there or not?

Birdie wrote:I'm no longer teaching, so there might be some reason this works nicely for schools of which I'm not aware. My kids would not be carrying one of these; I'd homeschool first. I have serious issues with a system that could have safety issues for those that follow the rules, but can be so easily defeated by those that don't. The students that are rule followers could be tracked by someone with nefarious intent, as mentioned upthread. The kids most likely to ditch class could pass their ID to a friend that is attending. In addition, I can see how this could make *more* work for me as a teacher. Would I be expected to check ID's at the door? Are kids that come to class denied access because they don't have their ID? Doesn't that defeat the purpose? It took me 30 seconds to take roll at the beginning of class and enter it into the computer system. Is this type of system being put into place because my word as a professional isn't good enough when I state someone is there or not?

You had to enter it all every day? I think the school I went to only logged the tardies and absents.