Pupil Hernandez, who refused to wear RFID, loses appeal
Screengrab of NISD webpage The school is one of 112 in Texas meant to introduce badges equipped with RFID tags
Continue reading the main story
Related Stories

Court row over US pupil tracker
Chatting cars - a reality soon?
RFID technology thwarts bird's nest counterfeiters

A Texan student who refused to wear a badge with a radio tag that tracked her movements has lost a federal court appeal against her school's ID policy.

The radio chips track attendance, which in turn helps secure school funding.

But Andrea Hernandez, 15, stopped wearing the badge on religious grounds, saying it was the "mark of the beast".

After John Jay High School suspended her, she went to court and won a temporary injunction to continue her studies at the school, without the tag.

The federal court ruling overturned that, saying if she was to stay at the school, she would be required to wear the badge. Otherwise, she would have to transfer to a new school.

The new identification policy at the Northside Independent School District (NISD) in San Antonio, Texas, began at the start of the 2012 school year.

John Jay High School is one of two schools piloting the programme, which eventually aims to equip all student badges across the district's 112 schools with radio-frequency identification (RFID) chips.

The badges reveal each student's location on their campus, giving the district more precise information on attendance.

The daily average of the attendance is related to how much funding each school receives.

But Miss Hernandez said the badge was the "mark of the beast", as described in chapter 13 of the Book of Revelation in the Bible.

There's no requirement to send children to school at all.

If you had kids and you tried it in the UK then you'll find the SS are at the door rather rapidly followed by various other agencies and then people breaking in your house at weird times of the day to steal the kids.

I would say you'll probably get away with it if you're a qualified teacher and know the rules and regs but God help anyone who's not careful tbh.

andyh wrote: I have heard there are problems with this, but the number of homeschooled kids is, understandably, going up and up. If I was going to do this in the UK, I'd try to live in an area where there are homeschooling groups. I understand that the social services snatch kids away for petty reasons, if it came down to this you'd have to up sticks and leave, I suppose.

I believe the school system is an almost entirely negative influence, and I also believe I could do a better job of educating any child on a one-to-one basis than the world's greatest teacher could in classes of 30. I'm against the indoctrination of the school system, I'm against the way that it institutionalises kids, I'm against the way it teaches them to bow down to authority. I don't believe half the stuff you learn in school is worthwhile, and I know for a fact that it's got ten time worse since I was at school. I'm not having any child of mine sit through bullshit lessons about 'climate change' and 'sustainability' while the school teaches them that it's right for them to deny themselves basic amenities.

I haven't had to deal with all the practicalities and problems that this poses yet, maybe I never will, but I feel very strongly that I'm morally opposed to the state school system in England, and I don't think I could allow a child of mine to go through it. I entirely understand why other people do, though, and there are arguments for it, without doubt.

They will though if she's still meant to be attending, because of the link to funding.

The only argument I can come up with in favour of it, is that the kids get to meet lots of other kids.
Its an important part of their learning process, socialising with peers.

Gilly wrote:

They must have issues in that county

And maybe they want to try it as a control incentive and a parental type help to keep kids from doing badly and skipping then dropping out, I would bet money that particular school had a high dropout rate

It's always difficult to assess precisely where you're giving a child good boundaries, as opposed to imposing your values on them.

Something again that I've questioned many times over the years as to whether this is what I'm actually doing sometimes with my kids. I still question it.

wake_up_bomb wrote:
Something again that I've questioned many times over the years as to whether this is what I'm actually doing sometimes with my kids. I still question it.

psketti wrote: It's practically impossible to get it perfect. Take the homeschooling example. What happens if one day your child states that they want to go to school - do you tell them that you know what's best for them, or do you relent to their wishes even though you don't want them to be exposed to it?

psketti wrote: It's practically impossible to get it perfect. Take the homeschooling example. What happens if one day your child states that they want to go to school - do you tell them that you know what's best for them, or do you relent to their wishes even though you don't want them to be exposed to it?

Been there too as it goes