Secondary students in the Santa Fe district are required to wear badges on campus that track their whereabouts using radio frequency identification technology.

School officials issued the badges this fall to ensure student safety and achieve more accurate attendance reporting.

Attendance rates haven’t been an issue in the district, but a reliable reporting system might allow Santa Fe to recover more state money from average daily attendance funding, district spokeswoman Patti Hanssard said. The monitoring system only tracks students on campus.

The district sought the badges after seeing a presentation from Spring Independent School District, which is north of Houston.

Since issuing the tracking badges in 2008, Spring has received a $194,000 increase in attendance funding, Hanssard said.

It’s too early to tell how much money Santa Fe will recover from using the badges, Hanssard said...
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(this may be acceptable for cattle and dogs, but children shouldn't have their privacy sacrificed for any amount of money - not even $194,000 -fc)