PS : I never had a student ID in high school. School was small enough that my identity was pretty obvious even without one
Yeah, and if a kid is taken, then we can figure out they did or did not get on the bus, helping to figure out last known locations.
This incident could also be okay-
May 17, 2023
On April 13th, 2023, Fairfax residents reported two yellow school buses, one arriving on an irregular schedule and one that was unmarked, that came to pick up students. However, when the parents tried to speak with the driver, the bus driver closed the door and drove off. About 15 minutes later, an unmarked bus arrived to come and drive the students to the school, which has now been confirmed to be the real bus.
So the real bus was also unmarked, and if a bunch of angry parents came at me, I might also close the door and drive off.
and then-
Fairfax County Public School buses will always be properly marked. The district says schools will never send an unmarked bus to pick up students.
Then why
“About 15 minutes later, an unmarked bus arrived to come and drive the students to the school, which has now been confirmed to be the real bus.”
and i dont see anything about a bus being stolen here?
Anyway this isnt Orwellian, but yeah, kids will lose of leave at home their ID.
Duh…
I must be obtuse today but I’m utterly not getting your point.
You make it sound a lot more Orwellian than it is. On net, it ends up enabling more freedom, not less, especially the part about being able to use IDs to unlock doors. Unless your school just keeps the building completely unlocked?
I do forget to hang my parking pass about half the time when I drive, and it’s never been an issue, but then, my assigned parking spot is the fifth-most-distant one.
Yeah, the story seems a bit odd to me, too. Among other things, I’ve never heard of an unmarked school bus. If they don’t have the name of the school or school district on them, then they’re from a school bus leasing company (schools sometimes need a few extras for field trips and such, and they can also be hired by camps and the like), and they’ll have the name of the company on them.
Back in the day …
Yes, my high school was completely unlocked during school time. At least, all the parts that students were allowed into were. We didn’t have guards at the door, either. Just a sign asking visitors to check in at the front desk. It was officially an “open campus”, too. Students were allowed to leave the school at lunch time, or other times when they didn’t have stuff on their schedule.
I realize that in these modern days of school shootings and fears of abduction and the general id-ification of the country that few, if any, schools offer the freedom of my youth. But that’s absolutely the standard I’m comparing things to.
We had to wear a lanyard with an ID that was color coded to your grade level.
Your parent had to come when you got it. If you lost it, the first replacement was $5..after that’s it was $25.
So you didn’t wanna lose it twice which I promptly did. But I found the first one after I lost the second.
I’m seeing a loophole, if you want complete compliance having a replacement plan might be an error. If your old one is found somewhere and person gets in the front door.
So, this is all a bunch of “who shot John” any way.
That’s the great thing about electronic keys like this: If one is reported lost, you can just disable that one in the system.
Our lanyards are supposed to be color-coded by grade level, too, but a lot of students wear some other lanyard. That part isn’t very enforced.
Oh. I’m glad to hear that.
I wouldn’t have thought it would be that sophisticated.
The only school ID my kids had was a virtual student card on their phones. Their government issued ID consisted of a birth certificate which obviously had no photo, their provincial health card which doesn’t get a photo until your first renewal after 16, and their passports. And this is in the fourth largest city in North America.
Sorry
It makes sense to me. If school buses are only available to students that live say a mile or more from the school, then the bus stops are going to be at least a mile away from school. But if a student lives 0.9 miles away from the school, it’s easier to just walk in the wrong direction that 0.1 mile to the nearest bus stop than to walk all the way to school. The keycards would prevent that, so they have to walk the full distance (plus some extra on that first failed attempt).
Now, when I grew up the bus driver checked your name against a list on the first day and they recognized you from then on. Any students who weren’t assigned to the bus probably wouldn’t have been able to get on back then either, unless a legit student rider vouched for them (this is my friend Bob we had a sleepover last night). I think the driver would pitch a fit, but in the days before cell phones they weren’t likely to leave a kid at the side of the road. I don’t remember if we had to get permission for trips on the “wrong” bus with the school office beforehand. I think I only ever did that in high school, and perhaps by that point they figured you were responsible enough to coordinate with your friend who gets on which bus. Plus all the buses had radios to a central “base” command so presumably they could look up a student’s name and do some vetting on the spot.
My high school, almost 60 years ago, was unlocked also. And we had no identification. Well, almost unlocked. My senior year I worked on the computer after my early school day was done. Being a teenage boy I put a wad of paper in the lock of a side door, went to buy a bagel, and came back through the door with it.
When I started to work at Bell Labs in 1980 we had ids, but we just showed them to get in and put them in our wallets. It was a few years later that we had to start wearing them.
I don’t believe this is accurate.
Based on comments from relatives who worked in the public schools system. And the school system was responsible for the student, so they had to get a teacher to drive the student to their home, or someone stay late at the school until a parent finished their work shift and could come pick the student up. Much hassle for the school.
Yes. Especially the early grades at the beginning of the school year.
I think the buses at my kids school had an animal or shape and the kindergarten riders wore a tag that corresponded to the bus they were meant to get in. It looked from where I was watching to be a real CF the first few days.
I am positive there were kids on wrong buses many times.
Give up the lanyards and id cards isn’t it time to chip the student population? No the answer is no. Still I don’t like to wear a lanyard.
You’re all looking at this from an adult perspective. But what if I’m a kid and I want to ditch the bus to go vandalize stuff for a couple of periods in the morning? I don’t need Big Brother watching my every move! Fuck The Man, I want to live by MY RULES 
!
Seriously, I would have despised this as a teenager 
. But I’m old(er). Back in my day we had no High School IDs and were on an open campus. Also I never liked riding buses and all through junior HS and HS across three different schools in two different states I preferred walking some variable number of miles to school.
Now days - eh, it makes some sense to me.
We’re like 6 months away from schools feeding the school bus security cameras into a facial recognition and tracking system, along with the school’s building cameras, to automatically track attendance, tardiness, class skipping, bathroom monitoring, etc.
Eta: Scratch that 6 months, it’s already here. Just need to add the bus feeds.
Don’t we think our young children have grown up around being watched, helicoptered, coddled, asked for their opinions to the level of it being very normal for them.
We grew up in a different time. Yes being watched like that grates on the nerves to us grown ups. But kids not so much.
Remind me to tell my grandkids how to stick it to the man in the fall semester. Boy, the Moms are gonna like me.