SUTTER – A school that required radio-frequency identification badges for students so every move they made could be tracked has ended the program because the developer of the technology pulled out.
"I'm disappointed. That's about all I can say at this point," Earnie Graham, the superintendent and principal of Brittan Elementary School in Sutter, said this week. "I think I let my staff down. Nobody on this campus knows every student."
The badges, developed by Sutter-based technology company InCom Corp., were introduced Jan. 18. The school board had been set to talk about the policy Tuesday night but tabled the discussion after InCom announced it was terminating its agreement.
School district lawyer Paul Nicholas Boylan said InCom cited the intense media attention and concern that the badges were being damaged by families opposed to them.
The system was imposed, without parental input, by the school to simplify attendance-taking and potentially reduce vandalism and improve student safety. Brittan appeared to be the first U.S. school district to embrace such a monitoring system.
While many parents criticized the badges for violating privacy, some parents favored the plan.
Students were required to wear an identification card around their necks with their picture, name and grade and a wireless transmitter that beamed their ID number to a teacher's handheld computer when the child passed under an antenna posted above a classroom door.
