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By Harriette Halepis

There’s nothing new about teens being truant. In fact, it’s practically a rite of passage for teens to skip school once in awhile. However, the Dallas Independent School District (DISD) doesn’t quite see it that way. Instead of trying to guess where truant teens may be located, this school district is relying upon GPS trackers to do all the work for them.
 
One school within the district has a particularly high dropout rate (15%), which has prompted the district to do something about teens that dare to skip class. Using this school as a sort of “test school,” the students of Bryan Adams High School are presently getting a crash course in GPS tracking.
 
The Plan

Six students from Bryan Adams High School have been chosen to participate in the new GPS test program. These students have been fitted with GPS trackers similar to the ones worn by those under police house arrest.
Each student has been assigned a case worker that effectively tracks all movements and daily activities. In addition, these case workers help family members to work with their teens in order to avoid truant behaviour.
 
The Cost

There’s nothing cheap about the $26,000 that the district has spent equipping these six students with GPS tracking devices. However, when that amount is compared to the amount of money lost due to drop-outs, and the amount of money it costs to place truant teens in a detention facility, the initial investment might actually be worth it.
On the flip side, there is another cost to think about – the cost of a student’s privacy. Many truant teens have various other problems occurring in their lives that have nothing to do with school. Home life, drugs, full-time jobs, and other factors play a large part in not arriving on time for school.
 
How Important Is School?

While some people believe that the new GPS tracking program is a good idea, others believe that it is a basic violation of human rights. As one Texas legal authority recently stated: “… ankle cuffs used in an earlier version were reminiscent of slave chains (NY Times).”
 
Is school attendance so important that truant teens should be tracked like those under house arrest? Or, is there another reason why some districts might want to begin tracking teens? Some believe that the true underlying cause of tracking students lies with the fact that districts that lose students due to truancy often lose a large portion of money that is given to the district. Does this new GPS tracking plan violate students’ rights?