Dive Summary:
- U.S. District Judge Orlando Garcia ruled Tuesday that the San Antonio Northside School District can require students to wear locator chips while on school property, and that the district acted within its rights when it expelled 15-year-old sophomore Andrea Hernandez from Jay High School for refusing to wear the device.
- The case raised privacy concerns among both liberal and conservative groups who felt the technology would be used to spy on students, including the American Civil Liberties Union and the Virginia-based Rutherford Institute--a conservative policy center that represented Hernandez in her case.
- Texas distributes state aid to education funds based on the number of students counted present in the classroom at the start of the day--Northside says it lost $1.7 million a year due to students loitering in stairwells or chatting in hallways--and district spokesman Pascual Gonzalez said the locator chips only work within school walls, can't track students' movements and don't allow third-party monitoring.
From the article:
A public school district in Texas can require students to wear locator chips when they are on school property, a federal judge ruled on Tuesday in a case raising technology-driven privacy concerns among liberal and conservative groups alike. ...
