Well it works for dogs and cows doesn't it?

Administrators at Brittan Elementary School in rural Sutter, California have concocted a scheme to keep kids safe -- electronic badges. The school claims it provides security, and boasts of already discovering a non-student on campus because of the badges.

The Associated Press reports that “[w]hile 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.”

Not everyone is enthusiastic about the idea:

"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 school implemented the program without any input from parents (Don't schools always complain about parents not getting involved? Hmmm.). And they now downplay any threat to student privacy.

Principal Earnie Graham hopes to eventually add bar codes to the existing ID's so that students can use them to pay for cafeteria meals and check out library books.

Heck Ernie, just get 'em all tattooed. That be a whole lot more efficient.

Posted by Jack Lewis at February 11, 2005 04:16 PM