ACLU Concerned about School Truant Monitoring System
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Joan Oleck -- School Library Journal, 5/26/2008 2:05:00 PM
The American Civil Liberties Union has expressed privacy concerns over a Texas high school’s practice of piloting an electronic monitoring system to track truant students.
"They're residents of the United States, where certain freedoms are extended to everyone, even truants," says Terri Burke, director of the Texas ACLU, adding that however negligent in attending school these students are, they’re still entitled to a certain degree of privacy.
Kyle Ross, coordinator of East Dallas-based Bryan Adams High School's alternative education program, defends the school’s current Global Positioning System (GPS), saying that the monitors, which are slightly larger than a cell phone, can be hidden in pockets and backpacks.
Late last year, when the project was launched, students wore ankle bracelets connected electronically to boxes on their belts. "It had a criminal look to it, and that created some political fallout, so we backed up and rethought it," Ross says.
With a juvenile court judge's approval, Ross has placed a different brand of monitor onto nine students—level "four" truants, one of whom was absent 160 of 185 days last year. And he insists that, "The kids are okay with the whole program," even though they are monitored 24 hours a day—the aspect of the program that especially gives the ACLU pause. The program is funded through a $26,000 grant.
Kids with monitors, who must be home by a 9 p.m. curfew, can't escape the GPS system, which uses voice imprinting to keep track of their whereabouts when they call in, Ross explains. He says the monitors have brought welcome change to Bryan Adams, a Title I school with 1,700 students.
Before the monitors, the school had 50 truants. This year, there is one. The kids fear the alternative—court fines and possible imprisonment, Ross says. And they seem to welcome the boundaries the system imposes. As for the students' families, "The parents love it," Ross claims. "The kids honestly absolutely tell me it's one of the best things that's happened.
Parents—who agree to attend court-ordered parenting classes—are "in close proximity to their kids," Ross says. "They're spending more time together. Trust has built up again."
