SUTTER COUNTY Students kept under
surveillance at school
Some parents angry over radio device
Greg Lucas, Chronicle Staff Writer - 10 February 2005
Sutter, Sutter County -- Angry parents, saying their children's
privacy rights are being violated, have asked the board of the tiny
Brittan School District to rescind a requirement that all students
wear badges that monitor their whereabouts on campus using radio
signals.
Located between the massive silos of Sutter Rice Co. and the Sutter
Buttes, this small town has 587 kindergarten through eighth-graders
who are the first public school kids in the country to be tracked
on campus by such a system, which is designed to ease attendance
taking and increase campus security.
"This is the only public school monitoring where children
go, with kids walking around with little homing beacons,'' said
Nicole Ozer, an American Civil Liberties Union lawyer aiding several
parents who oppose the badges, which students wear around their
necks.
Although all students have identification badges, only seventh-
and eighth-graders are being tracked in a test run, according to
school officials and representatives of InCom, a Sutter-based company
developing the system.
"There is no danger or I wouldn't put it on my son,'' Florrie
Turner, a school district employee helping the company develop the
software, told the school board at its Tuesday night meeting.
The student tracking system uses radio frequency identification
technology used mainly to monitor inventory and livestock.
Ozer said a district in Texas was testing the technology for use
on school buses to see that students get on and off.
Several parents in Sutter complained they weren't given a choice
about their child participating in the new system and argued that
the badges violated their children's right to privacy.
"Our belief is these children have never done anything to
give up some of their civil rights. They've never done anything
wrong, and they're being tracked," said Michelle Tatro who
along with her husband, Jeff, wrote a formal complaint to the school
board protesting the program.
Tatro said when her 13-year-old daughter came home from the first
day of school in January, when the students began wearing the tags,
she had waved the tag in her fist and said, "Look at this.
I'm a grocery item. I'm a piece of meat. I'm an orange."
Their daughter was threatened with disciplinary action if she did
not participate in the program, according to a letter sent by the
district.
Although the board said nothing in response to parental complaints,
several attendees defended the system, saying it would keep kids
in school, free up more time for teachers to teach and increase
security for pupils and teachers.
"It's baffling why so many people are bothered by the district
being able to tell them where their kids are at," said Tim
Crabtree, a high school teacher who said he hoped the technology
would come to his classroom.
The Tatros' complaint and objections by other parents to the tracking
system have led the district to relax its rule that all children
wear the tags. If parents send a note saying their children don't
want to wear the tag, they don't have to display it, but they must
carry it on their person until the board makes a decision on the
program's future at a special meeting called for next Tuesday.
The badges contain a photo of pupils, their grade level and their
name. On the back is a tube roughly the size of a roll of dimes.
Within it is a chip with an antenna attached. As the chip passes
underneath a reader mounted above the classroom door, it transmits
a 15-digit number, which then is translated into the student's name
by software contained in a handheld device used by teachers to check
attendance.
Seven classrooms were equipped with the readers, as were two bathrooms.
The bathroom readers were never turned on, according to school and
company officials, and were removed Wednesday by InCom because of
objections by parents.
InCom has also disabled its system and deleted data it has collected
to date. Readers have been turned off until the board reaches a
decision next week.
Developers of the system say parents concerned over privacy violations
don't understand the short range of radio frequency identification
devices.
"The tags physically can't be read from a long distance,"
said Doug Ahlers, an InCom partner.
Several of the aspects of the program the Tatros didn't like were
not the idea of InCom but of Principal Earnie Graham.
InCom said it could have tested its software simply by mounting
the chip on a blank piece of paper carried by students. It was Graham
-- who also wears an ID badge -- who wanted the chip attached to
a student identification card with names and photos.
Parents still objected to the requirement their children wear the
badges.
"You're saying, 'We don't have a choice. They have to wear
the badges or they'll be suspended.' That's my child, my blood,"
said Toni Scrogin, whose daughter attends the school. 'It should
be my choice."
Graham said that in retrospect parents should have been consulted
about the program rather than simply notifying them about it with
a brief blurb in the school newsletter.
But a dry run on the badge readers during summer school caused
"no outcry, " Graham said. "It wasn't an issue."
Despite testing the new system, the school is still using its old
software to take attendance, Graham said. Allowing the testing of
InCom's system cost the school nothing, Graham added.
Ahlers said the company had donated some computer equipment to
the school for its trouble.
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