Watching over you: to keep better tabs on students, one Texas district is testing ID badges that track school comings and goings.

• Author: Richtel, Matt
• Position: Technology

Outside her home in Spring, Tex., Courtney Payne, 9, exits a yellow school bus. Moments later, her movement is observed by Man Bragg, the local police chief, in a windowless control room more than a mile away.

Chief Bragg is not using video surveillance. Rather, he watches an icon on a computer screen. The icon marks the spot on a map where Courtney got off the bus, and, on a larger level, it represents the latest in the convergence of technology and student security.

WORRIED PARENTS

Hoping to improve safety by keeping better tabs on students, a few schools have begun monitoring student arrivals and departures with technology similar to that used to track livestock and retail shipments.

In Spring, a growing suburb north of Houston, 28,000 students have been given ID badges containing computer chips that are read when students get on and off school buses. The information is then fed by wireless phone to police and school administrators.

In a variation on the concept, a Phoenix school district is using fingerprint technology to track when and where students get on and off buses. And a charter school in Buffalo, N.Y., is automating attendance counts with computerized ID badges.

In the Spring district, many parents are applauding the...