California School District Truancy battles with GPS

Students with a trend of truancy in California Anaheim Union High School District shall be assigned GPS unit to make sure they're going to school on time, according to The Orange County Register. GPS units are the size of a mobile phone (chunky) and have been developed by Dallas goal truancy solutions, which operates in more than 100 middle and high schools in three States.

The Anaheim Union High School District is part of a voluntary pilot program for six weeks that is staging the seventh and eighth grade students who have more than three truancy with these devices. In Austin, Texas, where he also ran this experiment, was used for students in middle and high school who had racked up between 20 and 25 absences.

When asked why the Orange County Register are handheld devices rather than tied to Regional Director of students, Sylvan Miller, solutions to truancy goal, he said, "we don't want to criminalize children or have them wearing a bracelet or something around their ankle that he would have fired them."

Every school day, participants will receive an automated call reminding them to get to school on time. Then must enter a code which keeps track of their location during their departure for arrival at school, at school, during lunch, departure from school and at 8 p.m., the Register reports.

The cost between $ 300 and $ 400 apiece. All together, the six-week program costs about $ 8 per day per student or $ 18,000. It is estimated that schools lose $ 35 per day for every absent student, so program objective truancy solution is a cost savings.

Some parents were thrilled with the program. "This makes us seem like common criminals," a parent whose child has accumulated six unjustified absences, told the register.

But perhaps carrying a GPS unit and regularly logging path is better than the alternative: police investigator told the register that Armando Pardo if the District Attorney prosecutes, truant students may be sent to juvie and get sa with a nice $ 2,000.

"Nearly two-thirds of students in order [during the fall semester of 2010] made perfect attendance while the initial program and all students combined average 97 percent," according to a press release.