California school district institutes electronic tracking system for preschool students

[superconnected]

Source: Independent voter network

The Contra Costa County School District has become the first to implement an electronic tracking system for its students. Preschoolers in Richmond are now required to wear what resembles a basketball jersey that is implanted with a radio frequency transmitter.

The radio frequency tags will send signals to strategically placed sensors throughout the school allowing teachers and administrators to know exactly where each student is with the help of a virtual map of the premises. This technology, according to proponents, is meant to alert teachers when students leave campus.

School officials are touting the devices as harmless and labor-saving. Parents will now digitally sign in and sign out their children, saving teachers from that mundane and laborious task of keeping visual track of children and putting pencil to paper to take attendance. “Now, when we feed the children lunch we just have to push a button and it’s done,” said teacher Simone Beauford. “We don't have to check the papers, check the papers, check the papers…”

Sung Kim, speaking for the county's employment and human services department said the $50,000 system (funded by a federal grant) could potentially save 3,000 labor hours. “Within a year we could completely pay off this system from the savings we have with the staffing,” said Kim. “We are the first child care center that is implementing with this technology, but it is already proven technology.”

Read more: http://www.caivn.org/article/2010/09/01/california-school-district-institutes-electronic-tracking-system-preschool-studen

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The government funded this.

[brendan120678]

1. Ummm...

"saving teachers from that mundane and laborious task of keeping visual track of children"

Yeah...cause why would a preschool teacher actually want to pay attention to preschoolers?
They're so dull and boring!

:eyes:

[LibDemAlways]

2. How many children have disappeared from preschools in

Richmond? How can they possibly justify spending money on this crap at a time when the schools in Calif. are struggling to stay afloat?

[superconnected]

3. The kid can get raped/molested on campus and the teachers who stop

looking around visually would never know.

This is another example of giving up freedom for safety. The gov is funding it. Meaning everyone will have tracking devices for their "safety" in the end. They've just started with the preschoolers.

[Posteritatis]

16. Not safety so much as the illusion of same. (nt)

[KamaAina]

4. Note that Richmond is a poor city with a large minority population

they'd never try this in the wealthy suburbs elsewhere in that county. :eyes:

[Journeyman]

5. So children have gone from names to numbers to now blips on a screen. . .

If keeping watch on pre-school children is "a mundane and laborious task," if caring for them has now been reduced to "push a button and it's done," I envision a day when so-called "teachers" can be replaced by bar code readers and digital squawk boxes.

[obxhead]

9. I'm sure this is the first step to getting it outsourced to India. nt

[Old Troop]

12. That's gonna be a heck of a commute for those poor kids. nt

[obxhead]

15. No the kids won't commute.

They'll go to the same building. Only they will be taught by people in a warehouse in India via TV/net and monitored over the net for their location.

[rocktivity]

6. First they came for the stray pets. Then they came for the toddlers.

Then they'll come for the school children. Then they'll come for the adults. Then they'll come for the employees...

:(
rocktivity

[Uncle Joe]

8. Yes and as those toddlers grow up, their generation will be even more acclimated to Big Brother

tracking their every move.

It will be perfectly normal to them.

[hunter]

7. First it was a jersey, then it was an ear tag.

Baaaaaaaaaaa.....

[Lightning Count]

10. Was this policy written by valley girls?

It's just too booooring.

"saving teachers from that mundane and laborious task of keeping visual track of children and putting pencil to paper to take attendance."

[defendandprotect]

11. k --

[lunatica]

13. By the time they grow up we'll all be wearing trackers and we'll think it's OK

[Downwinder]

14. Here, will you hold my shirt while I go for a smoke? n/t