(USA TODAY) Would You Want Your Children To Go to This School?

Question

http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2006-10-09-school-security_x.htm

Each morning, the 16,000 students in the Spring Independent School District in suburban Houston swipe their ID tags as they climb onto the school bus. A radio frequency tag tracks them, as it does when they arrive at school and as they leave the building.

Nearly 1,000 cameras watch them all day. Visitors are kept inside a "secure vestibule," a bulletproof glass room, until they're checked out.

Raptor Technologies, the Houston firm that sells the tracking system that Spring uses was born from the collapse of Enron. The firm had built a Web-based system to track visitors at the Houston energy company, but when Enron, amid financial scandal, went belly-up in 2002, the technology was adapted.

They're now in 2,020 schools in 212 districts. More schools may get the technology soon; the U.S. Justice Department recently chose Raptor as a pilot program for schools nationwide.

Answer 1

Excellent idea, They are safe

Answer 2

Backinbowl has got this right. We need to protect our kids.. I absolutely agree but to tag them like an animal in a Safari Park is frankly one step too far. What always appears innocuous today invariably leads to despotism and invasive looks into our private lives.

There are other ways we can ensure things are safe for our kids than this rather over the top response. Only yesterday I was watching a docu about Charles whiting (killed 15 in Texas) that was in 1966. The world hasn't got any worse or better, but we now feel we must keep our children in cocoons.

Answer 3

Yet the same parents who are terrified of sending their kids to school drive them around everywhere -- a lot more kids die from car crashes than school shootings.

I really hate this idea that we must all get used to being treated as mass murderers everywhere all the time, with no reason or evidence. (If you want to fly on a plane, you are treated as though you have already been convicted of mass murder -- huh?)

Yet the real solutions to the occasional (considering how many schools there are, these incidents are rare) school shooting -- banning all violence in schools and punishing the batterers and rapists that attack kids every day, making rapid fire weaponry less readily available -- those things no one talks about doing.

Assume every person is going to pull out a gun and kill you. That's the solution.

Answer 4

I was an elementary school student in the 1950's. The Soviet Union was the big threat. We feared they would take over the world. Viet Nam was heating up which would escalate into the big stop to keep this domino effect of communism from suffocating us all.

We feared those communists. The fear seemed universal and unanimous talk explained it:-

-We would never want to live where our government knew where we were all the time.
-We would never agree to live where our movements and activities were monitored by any means.
-We would always maintain the undeniable right to privacy. After all in America we own our homes, bodies and possesions, not the government.
-Soviet schools were run by their government, we would never so give up local control.
-Soviets did things to preserve the "common good" while Americans believed in individual rights to live, work, play, and prosper or not as we so choose without anyone over our shoulders.

**Remember that American searches without specific warrants began in schools, (for the WAR on drugs) so did random drug testing, now-constant observation for the WAR on terror. Setting legal precedents in schools opens the way for the same procedures to take place EVERYWHERE in this country.

Will you feel safer when video monitors are installed in every room of every home to ensure no terroists are plotting next door?

I also remember well the movie "Red October" where one of the Soviet officers planning to defect to the US asks repeatedly, "No Papers?" He is amazed that in American he can travel state to state without papers.

There comes a point that measures taken to make some people feel safe, are really no more than tools given to authorities to take away ALL of our civil liberties.

At what point will people recognize that we have given over our country to our enemies without them needing to directly come in and do it themselves. Have we become our enemies?

Without our constitution and those first 10 amendments which had to be passed or the 13 original colonies would not sign on to this great experiment, - we no longer have our country, our democracy, our America. It is America for all, school children as well. You are teaching them it is OK for citizens to be WATCHED ALL THE TIME ! This is the generation that soon will be our leaders. They will justly say, "If it is OK for us, it is OK for you." Their logic is correct, and that is just why it is NOT OK for anyone.

Perhaps the reality TV shows and the internet broadcasts of ALL some people do in their daily lives is numbing people to the invasions of our privacy at an increasing rate. If some people want monitors if their bedrooms, it may be their right to do so, but it must also remain our right not to participate and to be able to maintain our right to privacy. I still do not consider urninating with an audience an acceptable American practice.

Perhaps the WAR on Drugs and the WAR on terror should realistically be called the WAR on America's civil liberties imbedded in our constitution. Read it, protect it, defend it. Our leaders all swore to uphold and protect the constitution, under oath, at the beginning of each term of office. Remind them. DEMAND they do just that.

Wake up America, Discover who you are and why America is so special. Don't give it away. It is worth keeping.

Answer 5

Absolutely.. my son is only 1 year old and I'm dreading the day he has to go to school. When I was in school you didn't worry about some psycho kid coming in and shooting everybody and now it seems to happen all the time. I want my son to be safe at school and if that is what it takes then so be it.

Answer 6

relies upon.My 3 have been taught entirely in Irish at known so are fluent Irish audio equipment.In secondary they swapped to being taught in English and could additionally take instructions in French,German or Spanish in the event that they had to.In different faculties nonetheless at known point they are taught in English yet get Irish training as properly.different secondaries supply the likes of Russian and Greek additionally.

Answer 7

i think that's a good idea. now the parents know where their kids are and know that they are safe. also it helps with the school shooting that we been hearing on the news. as long it helps keeps the children safe and make them feel safe at and going to school then i think all schools should do it.

Answer 8

Sure why not? I've worked in security buildings most my life and it gives you some comfort knowing that the only ones in the building are the ones that should be there.

Answer 9

it would be much better if they checked citizenship status before they issued the id cards.....

I have to wonder who owns Raptor? friends of bush or cheney?

Answer 10

Only if I thought they were prison bound and wanted to scare them straight!