Can A Tracking Device Curb Truancy?

It's 7 a.m. and Joshua Cervantes is getting ready for school.

He makes his bed, grabs his ID - and his GPS tracking device, reports CBS News correspondent Hari Sreenivasan.

At school, Joshua clicks his GPS. It sends a signal to a satellite and tells his truancy counselor that Josh is on time.

"Every 10 minutes it gives me a point on that individual," said Tom Urrutia, program manager of the monitoring system.

Josh is part of a pilot program at Bryan Adams High School in Dallas to stop truancy. Last year, out of 185 school days, he had 160 unexcused absences.

"So your parents dropped you off, and then you left?" Sreenivasan asked.

"Yeah," Joshua said. "Anywhere, I'd just go to a friend's house."

But for six weeks, a court ordered him to carry a tracking device, and made sure he was home by a 9 p.m. curfew.

Joshua didn't miss a single day of school.

"When they're in truancy, they're goin' down, we're losing them the longer they're gone," said Dr. Kyle Ross, an alternative education coordinator. "All of a sudden they get this device and it puts a stop right there."

Administrators say the monitoring device is doing more than just tracking. It gives kids a way to overcome the peer pressure to skip school.

"It's making me do what I want to, because I want to do this," Joshua said.

"We're accountable whether they show up or not, we're accountable for the graduation rate, the attendance," said Bryan Adams High School Principal Cynthia Goodsell. "If they're not here, we can't teach them and we're accountable for the coursework."

When kids don't attend school, districts lose money. Dallas has the highest dropout rate in Texas, and this school district loses $10 million every year in attendance revenue alone.

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Blog: Hari Sreenivasan explains more about how the tracking system works.

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But dropouts cost society even more.

Three in 10 federal prisoners, four in 10 state prisoners and half of those in death row are dropouts.

"So I just decided I don't want that; I just wanted to change and get what I want," Joshua said.

What he wants is to graduate and work in the medical field, thanks to a small tracking device that got him back on track.

[sierra1234-2009]

DID ANYONE EVER THINK THAT OUR SCHOOLS ARE BREEDING HOUSES FOR DRUG AND ALCOHOL USE?? MY SON COULD NO LONGER GO TO SCHOOL SAFELY FEELING THAT PEER PRESSURE TO DO DRUGS AND ALCOHOL WOULD EVENTUALLY "GET HIM". THINK HE DID THE RIGHT THING GETTING OUT AT 17 AND GETTING HIS GED AND MOVING ON WITH HIS LIFE

[telev1]

Truancy is reported by school officials in a timely matter at our district. A letter is sent to parent after 5 absences then again when a student misses 10. The letter is then sent to the county attorney to file charges for truancy. In most states this is a mandated reportable situation. We have filed letters early in the first semester only to have the first case heard in March. When the courts are involved parents can drop their student from school. When this happens the truant issue does not exist thus the truant charges are dropped. The laws in the state of Kansas allow parents to pick up a "free pass" when a student drops as the compulsory attendance law becomes obsolete. The parent is the one who should be wearing the bracelet pay a fine or face serve jail time since they are failing their son/daughter as a parent.

[michellem99-2009]

The satalite sends data to the gps device . They can track by computer that devive if computer is set to read that device and tell where he is.

[jsalsburg]

Your story has a problem. To quote the story "At school, Joshua clicks his GPS. It sends a signal to a satellite and tells his truancy counselor that Josh is on time." This can not be true. GPS does not send any signals, they are receivers. The device probably uses a Cell Network or a terrestrial Data Service to communical fron the handhels device to the target recipient of the Data. If the terrestrial Data Service then uses a satellite which I doubt, your story is accurate but I do not think this is what you meant.

[michellem99-2009]

Taken away..Ye know where they end up FOSTER HOMES,ye read right FOSTER HOMES.I know that life. If ye think they for the child think again.They don''t. The child is just a check for them. Children are warehoused,slaves to the Foster parents. They are acused. Foster parents tell lies of the child''s family. Change his/her name in the home. Bar child''s family. I became a foster child at 5/6 and it ended when I turnt 21. I could not talk to them about any thing. I lived in fear. Love it was not. I went to school all it was a break from the home. I did not cut class. I was safer at school even tho they would not teach me. My gendar and blindness is why. I wanted what denied me. It was sp ed. I was the only blind. the law said I had to be in class but that was it. I was handed my high school dilopma and they just wanted me be out. I have about a 3rd grade ed but never went to 3 grade. From 5 to 10 barred from school. It was the handicapped issue. I was hurt and pissed. Foster homes are not the answer.

[dobbershome]

If he doesn''t want to go to school so be it. Good luck making it out there in the real world without a High school diploma/GED.

[usmcvn2]

Nanny Govt. at it again!

This is stupid. PARENTS READ THIS: If you think your child needs to have a monitoring device to make sure they are going to school, then you are pathetic parents and should have your children taken away. This is a parenting issue and nothing else. It is our job to ensure our children get a good education and not the governments. This all falls in the same category as giving our kids drugs to calm them down so they can be "good kids" in school. Not sure of the spelling, but it is Ritalin. Parents that allow this are worthless parents and shouldn''t even have kids. Turn off the game consoles, computers and televisions and stop being lazy parents and take control of the lives that are supposed to be the most precious in your life right now. Quit depending on drugs, and government control in raising your children.

[lochlan-2009]

Wow, they will use any excuse to push tracking devices on people. It seems to me that it is about time we made an Amendment to the Constitution, that forbids MANDATORY tracking devices of any sort on citizens, if this country wants to keep from going down the path to an authoritarian state.

It''s not hard to see the path oligarchy worshipers are seeking. Get the kids use to being tracked at all times as children (especially the trouble makers), and when they are adults they wont know any other way.

[mollydtt]

We have lapsed into an era of "school is optional". Unfortunately, it means that the schools fail and the kids that want to be there have to find other schools. It is unfortunate that we have to abide with the decisions of kids that are too young to know that they need an education. Silly isn''t it that they get to call the shots. Someone has to be the adult and keep them in school until their reasoning skills are developed.