Nowhere to hide: stay in bed till 2 p.m.? Not when your school can track you electronically.

• Author: Kovach, Gretel C.
• Position: EDUCATION - Column

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At dawn one morning last May, another typical school day began for Jaime Pacheco as he rolled out of bed to the blaring of two alarm clocks. Jaime, then a freshman at Bryan Adams High School in East Dallas, made the bed, fed the dogs, and just before walking out the door, strapped a GPS monitor to his belt.

As his grandmother drove him to school around 7:15, he held the little black monitor out the window for the satellite to register. When he got to school, he pressed a button on the unit three times. A green light flashed, and Jaime headed for the cafeteria with plenty of time before the morning bell.

It wasn't always like this. Jaime used to snooze until 2 p.m. before strolling into school. He was failing most of his classes and school officials sent him to truancy court.

But instead of being sent to juvenile detention, Jaime was selected by a judge for a pilot program at Adams in which chronically truant students are monitored electronically. Jaime started carrying the Global Positioning System device in April and had perfect attendance for the rest of the school year.

The Dallas school system has found it hard to manage large numbers of truant students, and, like districts nationwide, is struggling to boost its graduation rate. (One third of American students drop out of school.)

Dallas is among the first districts in the nation to experiment with electronic monitoring. At Adams, 9 of the 300-plus students sent to truancy court last spring were enrolled in the program.

Ricardo Pacheco, 18, who is no relation to Jaime, says electronic monitoring helped him get on track.

"It was easier to come to school each day, stay out of the streets, and...