WASHINGTON, November 29 (RIA Novosti) - A battle is heating up between school officials who are trying to improve student attendance in the US state of Texas and a 15-year-old girl who says the ID badges that let the school track student movements on campus are a “mark of the beast” and a violation of her religious beliefs.
“It makes me uncomfortable. It’s an invasion of my privacy,” said Andrea Hernandez in an interview with KSN-TV.
The badges are embedded with a microchip that can pinpoint student locations on campus and are part of a pilot program that began this fall at Northside Independent School District (NISD) in San Antonio.
Hernandez refuses to wear the badge and with her father’s support turned down the school’s offer to remove the microchip or let her transfer to a different school that doesn’t use the badges.
The family filed a lawsuit that cites scriptures from the biblical book of Revelations and claims that “acceptance of a certain code… from a secular ruling authority” is a form of idol worship, according to The Associated Press.
Now the case appears to be headed to federal court.
“We told them that to go to school here you must wear a visible ID,” said Pascual Gonzalez, executive director of communications for the NISD in an interview with RIA Novosti.
The district handed out 4,200 badges to high school and middle school students at two schools, saying they could be used to locate students quickly in case of an emergency.
“Parents entrust us with their children and expect that we always know where their children are,” the school district said in a statement on its website. “This technology will help us do that.”
The badges are one way to help administrators track attendance, which has been lagging at the two schools selected for the program.
But the entire district could also benefit financially if students keep the badges on.
School funding in Texas is based on daily attendance rates and the chips could add an estimated $2 million to the district’s annual budget by locating students who are on campus but not in class when attendance is taken.
“NISD is a school district and not a government and they need to understand that,” the girl’s father, Steve Hernandez, told KSN-TV.
A court hearing on Wednesday was cancelled when school officials decided they wanted the case heard in federal court.
“They claim a religious objection to wearing the technology,” said Gonzalez. “Since the challenge is one based on federal constitutional rights so we felt that the best venue would be a federal court,” he added.
A date for the federal hearing has not been set.
